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DE  QUINCEY'S  WRITINGS. 


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-  THOMAS  DE  aUINCEY'S  TOITINGS. 

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CONTENTS. 

SHAKSPEARE 7-100 

POPE 101-166 

CHARLES  LAMB 167-228 

GOETHE 229-264 

SCHILLER     . .    .    .    .265-288 


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shakspeare; 


William  Shakspeare,  the  protagonist  on  the  great, 
arena  of  modern  poetry,  and  the  glory  of  the  human  \ 
intellect,  was  born  at  Stratford-upon-Avon,  in  the 
county  of  Warwick,  in  the  year  1564,  and  upon  some 
day,  not  precisely  ascertained,  in  the  month  of  April. 
It  is  certain  that  he  was  baptized  on  the  25th ;  and 
from  that  fact,  combined  with  some  shadow  of  a  tradi- 
tion, Malone  has  inferred  that  he  was  born  on  the  23d. 
There  is  doubtless,  on  the  one  hand,  no  absolute  neces- 
sity deducible  from  law  or  custom,  as  either  operated 
in  those  times,  which  obliges  us  to  adopt  such  a  con- 
clusion; for  children  might  be  baptized,  and  were 
baptized,  at  various  distances  from  their  birth :  yet,  on 
the  other  hand,  the  23d  is  as  likely  to  have  been  the 
day  as  any  other ;  and  more  likely  than  any  earlier  day, 
upon  two  arguments.  First,  because  there  was  proba-  \ 
bly  a.  tradition  floating  in  the  seventeenth  century, 
that  Shakspeare  died  upon  his  birthday:  now  it  is 
beyond  a  doubt  that  he  died  upon  the  23d  of  April. 


8  SHAKSPEAEE. 

Secondly,  because  it  is  a  reasonable  presumption,  that 
no  parents,  living  in  a  simple  community,  tenderly 
alive  to  the  pieties  of  household  duty,  and  in  an  age 
still  clinging  reverentially  to  the  ceremonial  ordinances 
of  religion,  would  much  delay  the  adoption  of  their 
child  into  the  great  family  of  Christ.  Considering  the 
extreme  frailty  of  an  infant's  life  during  its  two  earliest 

^  years,  to  delay  would  often  be  to  disinherit  the  child  of 
its  Christian  privileges ;  privileges  not  the  less  eloquent 
to  the  feelings  from  being  profoundly  mysterious,  and, 
in  the  English  church,  forced  not  only  upon  the  atten- 
tion, but  even  upon  the  eye  of  the  most  thoughtless. 
According  to  the  discipline  of  the  English  church,  the 

y  unbaptized  are  buried  with  '  maimed  rites,'  shorn  of 
their  obsequies,  and  sternly  denied  that  *  sweet  and 
solemn  farewell,'  by  which  otherwise  the  church  ex- 
presses her  final  charity  with  all  men ;  and  not  only 
so,  but  they  are  even  locally  separated  and  seques- 
trated. Ground  the  most  hallowed,  and  populous  with 
Christian  burials  of  households, 

•  That  died  in  peace  with  one  another, 
Father,  sister,  son,  and  bratbof)^ 

opens  to  receive  the  vilest  malefactor ;  by  which  the 
church  symbolically  expresses  her  maternal  willingness 
to  gather  back  into  her  fold  those  even  of  her  flock 
who  have  strayed  from  her  by  the  most  memorable 
^  aberrations ;  and  yet,  with  all  this  indulgence,  she 
banishes  to  unhallowed  ground  the  innocent  bodies  of 
the  unbaptized.  To  them  and  to  suicides  she  turns  a 
face  of  wrath.  With  this  gloomy  fact  ofiered  to  the 
very  external  senses,  it  is  difficult  to  suppose  that  any 


SHAKSPEARE.  y 

parents  would  risk  their  own  reproaches,  by  putting 
the  fulfilment  of  so  grave  a  duty  on  the  hazard  of  a 
convulsion  fit.  The  case  of  royal  children  is  difierent  • 
their  baptisms,  it  is  true,  were  often  delayed  for  weeks, 
but  the  household  chaplains  of  the  palace  were  always 
at  hand,  night  and  day,  to  baptize  them  in  the  very 
agonies  of  death.2  We  must  presume,  therefore,  that 
William  Shakspeare  was  born  on  some  day  very  little 
anterior  to  that  of  his  baptism ;  and  the  more  so 
because  the  season  of  the  year  was  lovely  and  genial, 
the  23d  of  April  in  1564,  corresponding  in  fact  with 
what  we  now  call  the  3d  of  May,  so  that,  whether  the 
child  was  to  be  carried  abroad,  or  the  clergyman  to  be 
summoned,  no  hindrance  would  arise  from  the  weather. 
One  only  argument  has  sometimes  struck  us  for  sup- 
posing that  the  22d  might  be  the  day,  and  not  the  23d ; 
which  is,  that  Shakspeare's  sole  grand-daughter.  Lady 
Barnard,  was  married  on  the  22d  of  April,  1626,  ten 
years  exactly  from  the  poet's  death  ;  and  the  reason 
for  choosing  this  day  might  have  had  a  reference  to 
her  illustrious  grandfather's  birthday,  which,  there  is 
good  reason  for  thinking,  would  be  celebrated  as  a  fes- 
tival in  the  family  for  generations.  Still  this  choice 
may  have  been  an  accident,  or  governed  merely  by 
reason  of  convenience.  And,  on  the  whole,  it  is  as 
well  perhaps  to  acquiesce  in  the  old  belief,  that  Shak- 
speare was  born  and  died  on  the  23d  of  April.  We 
cannot  do  wrong  if  we  drink  to  his  memory  on  both 
22d  and  23d. 

On  a  first  review  of  the  circumstances,  we  have 
reason  to  feel  no  little  perplexity  in  finding  the  mate- 
rials for  a  life  of  this  transcendent  writer  so  meagre 


10  SHAKSPEAEE. 

and  so  few;  and  amongst  them  the  larger  part  of 
doubtful  authority.  All  the  energy  of  curiosity  di- 
rected upon  this  subject,  through  a  period  of  one 
hundred  and  fifty  years,  (for  so  long  it  is  since  Better- 
ton  the  actor  began  to  make  researches,)  has  availed 
us  little  or  nothing.  Neither  the  local  traditions  of  his 
provincial  birthplace,  though  sharing  with  London 
through  half  a  century  the  honor  of  his  familiar  pres- 
ence, nor  the  recollections  of  that  brilliant  literary 
circle  with  whom  he  lived  in  the  metropolis,  have 
yielded  much  more  than  such  an  outline  of  his  history, 
as  is  oftentimes  to  be  gathered  from  the  penurious 
records  of  a  grave-stone.  That  he  lived,  and  that  he 
died,  and  that  he  was  *  a  little  lower  than  the  angels ; ' 
—  these  make  up  pretty  nearly  the  amount  of  our 
undisputed  report.  It  may  be  doubted,  indeed,  whether 
at  this  day  we  are  as  accurately  acquainted  with  the 
life  of  Shakspeare  as  with  that  of  Chaucer,  though 
divided  from  each  other  by  an  interval  of  two  centu- 
ries, and  (what  should  have  been  more  effectual 
towards  oblivion)  by  the  wars  of  the  two  roses.  And 
yet  the  traditional  memory  of  a  rural  and  a  sylvan 
region,  such  as  Warwickshire  at  that  time  was,  is 
usually  exact  as  well  as  tenacious  ;  and,  with  respect 
to  Shakspeare  in  particular,  we  may  presume  it  to 
have  been  full  and  circumstantial  through  the  genera- 
tion succeeding  to  his  own,  not  only  from  the  curiosity, 
and  perhaps  something  of  a  scandalous  interest,  which 
would  pursue  the  motions  of  one  living  so  large  a  part 
of  his  life  at  a  distance  from  his  wife,  but  also  from 
the  final  reverence  and  honor  which  would  settle  upon 
the  memory   of  a   poet   so  preeminently  successful ; 


SHAKSPEARE.  1 1 

of  one  who,  in  a  space  of  five  and  twenty  years,  after 
running  a  bright  cafeer  in  the  capital  city  of  his  native 
land,  and   challenging   notice   from   the   throne,   had   \ 
retired  with  an  ample  fortune,  created  by  his  personal 
efforts,  and  by  labors  purely  intellectual. 

How  are  we  to  account,  then,  for  that  deluge,  as  if 
from  Lethe,  which  has  swept  away  so  entirely  the 
traditional  memorials  of  one  so  illustrious?  Such  is 
the  fatality  of  error  which  overclouds  every  question 
connected  with  Shakspeare,  that  two  of  his  principal 
critics,  Steevens  and  Malone,  have  endeavoured  to  solve 
the  difficulty  by  cutting  it  with  a  falsehood.  They 
deny  in  effect  that  he  loas  illustrious  in  the  century 
succeeding  to  his  own,  however  much  he  has  since 
become  so.  We  shall  first  produce  their  statements  in 
their  own  words,  and  we  shall  then  briefly  review 
them. 

Steevens  delivers  Ms  opinion  in  the  following  terms  : 
'  How  little  Shakspeare  was  once  read,  may  be  under- 
stood from  Tate,  who  in  his  dedication  to  the  altered 
play  of  King  Lear,  speaks  of  the  original  as  an  obscure 
piece,'  recommended  to  his  notice  by  a  friend  :  and  the 
author  of  the  Tatler,  having  occasion  to  quote  a  few  \ 
lines  out  of  Macbeth,  was  content  to  receive  them 
from  Davenant's  alteration  of  that  celebrated  drama, 
in  which  almost  every  original  beauty  is  either  awk- 
wardly disguised  or  arbitrarily  omitted.'  Another 
critic,  who  cites  this  passage  from  Steevens,  pursues 
the  hypothesis  as  follows :  '  In  fifty  years  after  his 
death,  Dryderi  mentions  that  he  was  then  become  a 
little  obsolete.  In  the  beginning  of  the  last  century. 
Lord  Shaftesbury  complains  of  his  rude  unpolished 


12 


SHAKSPEARE. 


style,  and  his  antiquated  phrase  and  wit.  It  is  certain 
that,  for  nearly  a  hundred  years  after  his  death,  partly 
owing  to  the  immediate  revolution  and  rebellion,  and 
partly  to  the  licentious  taste  encouraged  in  Charles  II.'s 
time,  and  perhaps  partly  to  the  incorrect  state  of  his 
works,  he  was  almost  entirely  neglected.'  This 
critic  then  goes  on  to  quote  with  approbation  the  opin- 
ion of  Malone,  — '  that  if  he  had  been  read,  admired, 
studied,  and  imitated,  in  the  same  degree  as  he  is  now, 
the  enthusiasm  of  some  one  or  other  of  his  admirers 
in  the  last  age  would  have  induced  him  to  make  some 
inquiries  concerning  the  history  of  his  theatrical  career, 
and  the  anecdotes  of  his  private  life.'  After  which 
this  enlightened  writer  re-affirms  and  clenches  the 
judgment  he  has  quoted,  by  saying,  —  'His  admirers, 
however,  if  he  had  admirers  in  that  age,  possessed  no 
portion  of  such  enthusiasm.' 

It  may,  perhaps,  be  an  instr.uctive  lesson  to  young 
readers,  if  we  now  show  them,  by  a  short  sifting  of 
these  confident  dogmatists,  how  easy  it  is  for  a  careless 
or  a  half- re  ad  man  to  circulate  the  most  absolute  false- 
hoods under  the  semblance  of  truth ;  falsehoods  which 
impose  upon  himself  as  much  as  they  do  upon  others. 
We  believe  that  not  one  word  or  illustration  is  uttered 
in  the  sentences  cited  from  these  three  critics,  which  is 
not  virtually  in  the  very  teeth  of  the  truth. 
(  To  begin  with  Mr.  Nahum  Tate.  This  poor  grub 
of  literature,  if  he  did  really  speak  of  Lear  as  '  an 
obscure  piece,  recommended  to  his  notice  by  a  friend,' 
of  which  we  must  be  allowed  to  doubt,  was  then  utter- 
ing a  conscious  falsehood.  It  happens  that  Lear  was 
one  of  the  few  Shakspearian  dramas  which  had  kept 


SHAKSPEARE.     .  13 

the  stage  unaltered.  But  it  is  easy  to  see  a  mercenary- 
motive  in  such  an  artifice  as  this.  Mr.  Nahum  Tate  is 
not  of  a  class  of  whom  it  can  be  safe  to  say  that  they 
are  '  well  known  : '  they  and  their  desperate  tricks  are 
essentially  obscure,  and  good  reason  he  has  to  exult  in 
the  felicity  of  such  obscurity ;  for  else  this  same  vilest 
of  travesties,  Mr.  Nahum's  Lear,  would  consecrate  his 
name  to  everlasting  scorn^  For  himself,  he  belonged 
,to  the  age  of  Dry  den  rather  than  of  Pope  :  he  '  flour- 
ished,' if  we  can  use  such  a  phrase  of  one  who  was 
always  withering,  about  the  era  of  the  Revolution;  and 
his  Lear,  we  believe,  was  arranged  in  the  year  1682. 
But  the  family  to  which  he  belongs  is  abundantly  re- 
corded in  the  Dunciad,and  his  own  name  will  be  found 
amongst  its  catalogues  of  heroes. 

With  respect  to  the  author  of  the  Tatler,  a  very 
different  explanation  is  requisite.  Steevens  means  the 
reader  to  understand  Addison ;  but  it  does  not  follow 
that  the  particular  paper  in  question  was  from  his  pen. 
Nothing,  however,  could  be  more  natural  than  to  quote 
from  the  common  form  of  the  play  as  then  in  posses- 
■  sion  of  the  stage.  It  was  there,  beyond  a  doubt,  that  a 
fine  gentleman  living  upon  town,  and  not  professing' 
any  deep  scholastic  knowledge  of  literature,  (a  light  in 
which  we  are  always  to  regard  the  writers  of  the 
Spectator,  Guardian,  &;c.,)  woiild  be  likely  to  have 
learned  anything  he  quoted  from  Macbeth.  This  we 
say  generally  of  the  writers  in  those  periodical  papers  ; 
but,  with  reference  to  Addison  in  particular,  it  is  time 
to  correct  the  popular  notion  of  his  literary  <jharacter, 
or  at  least  to  mark  it  by  severer  lines  of  distinction. 
It  is  already  pretty  well  known,  that  Addison  had  no 


14  SHAKSPEAEE. 

very  intimate  acquaintance  with  the  literature  of  his 
own  country.  It  is  known,  also,  that  he  did  not  think 
such  an  acquaintance  any  ways  essential  to  the  char- 
acter of  an  elegant  scholar  and  litterateur.  Quite 
enough  he  found  it,  and  more  than  enough  for  the  time 
he  had  to  spare,  if  he  could  maintain  a  tolerable 
familiarity  with  the  foremost  Latin  poets,  and  a  very 
slender  one  indeed  with  the  Grecian.  How  slender, 
we  can  see  in  his  '  Travels.'  Of  modern  authors, 
none  as  yet  had  been  published  with  notes,  commen- 
taries, or  critical  collations  of  the  text ;  and,  accord- 
ingly, Addison  looked  upon  all  of  them,  except  those 
few  who  professed  themselves  followers  in  the  retinue 
and  equipage  of  the  ancients,  as  creatures  of  a  lower 
race.  Boileau,  as  a  mere  imitator  and  propagator  of 
Horace,  he  read,  and  probably  little  else  amongst  the 
French  classics.  Hence  it  arose  that  he  took  upon 
himself  to  speak  sneeringly  of  Tasso.  To  this,  which 
was  a  bold  act  for  his  timid  mind,  he  was  emboldened 
by  the  countenance  of  Boileau.  Of  the  elder  Italian 
authors,  such  as  Ariosto,  and,  a  fortiori^  Dante,  he 
knew  absolutely  nothing.  Passing  to  our  own  litera- 
ture, it  is  certain  that  Addison  was  profoundly  ignorant 
of  Chaucer  and  of  Spenser.  Milton  only, —  and  why  } 
simply  because  he  was  a  brilliant  scholar,  and  stands 
like  a  bridge  between  the  Christian  literature  and  the 
Pagan,  —  Addison'  had  read  and  esteemed.  There 
was  also  in  the  very  constitution  of  Milton's  mind,  in 
the  majestic  regularity  and  planetary  solemnity  of  its 
epic  movements,  something  which  he  could  understand 
and  appreciate.  As  to  the  meteoric  and  incalculable 
eccentricities  of  the  dramatic  mind,  as  it  displayed 


SHAKSPEAFF.  > 

itself  in  the  heroic  age  of  our  drama,  ambngsf  the 
Titans  of  1590  - 1630,  they  confounded  and  over- 
whelmed him. 

In  particular,  with  regard  to  Shakspeare,  we  shall 
now  proclaim  a  discovery  which  we  made  some  twenty 
years  ago.  We,  like  others,  from  seeing  frequent 
references  to  Shakspeare  in  the  Spectator,  had  acqui- 
esced in  the  common  belief,  that  although  Addison  was 
no  doubt  profoundly  unlearned  in  Shakspeare's  lan- 
guage, and  thoroughly  unable  to  do  him  justice,  (and 
this  we  might  well  assume,  since  his  great  rival,  Pope, 
who  had  expressly  studied  Shakspeare,  was,  after  all, 
so  memorably  deficient  in  the  appropriate  knowledge,) 
—  yet,  that  of  course  he  had  a  vague  popular  know- 
ledge of  the  mighty  poet's  cardinal  dramas.  Accident 
only  led  us  into  a  discovery  of  our  mistake.  Twice 
or  thrice  we  had  observed,  that  if  Shakspeare  were 
quoted,  that  paper  turned  out  not  to  be  Addison's  ;  and 
at  length,  by  express  examination,  we  ascertained  the 
curious  fact,  that  Addison  has  never  in  one  instance 
quoted  or  made  any  reference  to  Shakspeare.  But 
was  this,  as  Steevens  most  disingenuously  pretends,  to 
be  taken  as  an  exponent  of  the  public  feeling  towards 
Shakspeare  ?  Was  Addison's  neglect  representative  of 
a  general  neglect  ?  If  so,  whence  came  Rowe's  edi- 
tion. Pope's,  Theobald's,  Sir  Thomas  Hanmer's,  Bishop 
Warburton's,  all  upon  the  heels  of  one  another  ?  With 
such  facts  staring  him  in  the  face,  how  shameless  must 
be  that  critic  who  could,  in  support  of  such  a  thesis, 
refer  to  '  the  author  of  the  Tatler,^  contemporary 
with  all  these  editors.  The  truth  is,  Addison  was  well 
aware  of  Shakspeare's  hold  on  the  popular  mind ;  too- 


# 


16  SHAKSPEARE. 

well  aware  of  it.  The  feeble  constitution  of  the  poetic 
faculty,  as  existing  in  himself,  forbade  his  sympathizing 
with  Shakspeare  ;  the  proportions  were  too  colossal  for 
his  delicate  vision ;  and  yet,  as  one  who  sought  popu- 
larity himself,  he  durst  not  shock  what  perhaps  he, 
viewed  as  a  national  prejudice.  Those  who  have  hap- 
pened, like  ourselves,  to  see  the  effect  of  passionate 
music  and  '  deep-inwoven  harmonics '  upon  the  feeling 
of  an  idiot,  ^  may  conceive  what  we  mean.  Such  music 
does  not  utterly  revolt  the  idiot ;  on  the  contrary,  it  has 
a  strange  but  a  horrid  fascination  for  him ;  it  alarms, 
irritates,  disturbs,  makes  him  profoundly  unhappy ;  and 
chiefly  by  unlocking  imperfect  glimpses  of  thoughts 
and  slumbering  instincts,  which  it  is  for  his  peace  to 
have  entirely  obscured,  because  for  him  they  can  be 
revealed  only  partially,  and  with  the  sad  effect  of 
throwing  a  baleful  gleam  upon  his  blighted  condition. 
Do  we  mean,  then,  to  compare  Addison  with  an  idiot  ? 
Not  generally,  by  any  means.  Nobody  can  more  sin- 
cerely admire  him  where  he  was  a  man  of  real  genius, 
viz.,  in  his  delineations  of  character  and  manners,  or 
in  the  exquisite  delicacies  of  his  humor.  But  assuredly 
Addison,  as  a  poet,  was  amongst  the  sons  of  the  feeble  ; 
and  between  the  authors  of  Cato  and  of  King  Lear 
there  was  a  gulf  never  to  be  bridged  over.^ 

But  Dry  den,  we  are  told,  pronounced  Shakspeare 
already  in  Hs'day  '  a  little  obsolete.^  Here  now  we 
have  wilful,  deliberate  falsehood.  Obsolete,  in  Dry- 
den's  meaning,  does  not  imply  that  he  was  so  with 
regard  to  his  popularity,  (the  question  then  at  issue,) 
but  with  regard  to  his  diction  and  choice  of  words. 
To  cite  Dryden  as  a  witness  for  any  purpose  against 


SHAKSPEARE.  17 

Shakspeare,  —  Dryden,  who  of  all  men  had  the  most 
ransacked  wit  and  exhausted  language  in  celebrating 
the  supremacy  of  Shakspeare's  genius,  does  indeed 
require  as  much  shamelessness  in  feeling  as  mendacity 
in  principle. 

But  then  Lord  Shaftesbury,  who  may  be  taken  as 
half  way  between  DrydcnamTPCfpe,  (Dryden  died  in 
1700,  Pope  was  then  twelve  years  old,  and  Lord  S. 
wrote  chiefly,  we  believe,  between  1700  and  1710,) 
*  complains,'  it  seems,  '  of  his  rude  unpolished  style, 
and  his  antiquated  phrase  and  wit.'  What  if  he  does  > 
Let  the  whole  truth  be  told,  and  then  we  shall  see  how 
much  stress  is  to  be  laid  upon  such  a  judgment.  The 
second  Lord  Shaftesbury,  the  author  of  the  Character- 
istics, was  the  grandson  of  that  famous  political  agitator, 
the  Chancellor  Shaftesbury,  who  passed  his  whole  life 
in  storms  of  his  own  creation.  The  second  Lord 
Shaftesbury  was  a  man  of  crazy  constitution,  querulous 
from  ill  health,  and  had  received  an  eccentric  educa- 
tion from  his  eccentric  grandfather.  He  was  practised 
daily  in  talking  Latin,  to  which  afterwards  he  added  a 
competent  study  of  the  Greek ;  and  finally  he  became 
unusually  learned  for  his  rank,  but  the  most  absolute 
and  undistinguishing  pedant  that  perhaps  literature  has 
to  show.  He  sneers  continually  at  the  regular  built 
academic  pedant ;  but  he  himself,  though  no  academic, 
was  essentially  the  very  impersonation  of  pedantry. 
No  thought  however  beautiful,  no  image  however  mag- 
nificent, could  conciliate  his  praise  as  long  as  it  was 
clothed  in  English;  but  present  him  with  the  most 
trivial  commonplaces  in  Greek,  and  he  unaffectedly 
fancied  them  divine ;  mistaking  the  pleasurable  sense 
2 


18  SHAKSPEARE. 

of  his  own  power  in  a  difficult  and  rare  accomplish- 
ment for  some  peculiar  force  or  beauty  in  the  passage. 
Such  was  the  outline  of  his  literary  taste.  And  was 
it  upon  Shakspeare  only,  or  upon  him  chiefly,  that  he 
lavished  his  pedantry  ?  Far  from  it.  He  attacked 
Milton  with  no  less  fervor ;  he  attacked  Dryden  with  a 
thousand  times  more.  Jeremy  Taylor  he  quoted  only 
to  ridicule ;  and  even  Locke,  the  confidential  friend  of 
his  grandfather,  he  never  alludes  to  without  a  sneer. 
As  to  Shakspeare,  so  far  from  Lord  Shaftesbury's 
censures  arguing  his  deficient  reputation,  the  very  fact 
of  his  noticing  him  at  all  proves  his  enormous  popu- 
larity ;  for  upon  system  he  noticed  those  only  who 
ruled  the  public  taste.  The  insipidity  of  his  objections 
to  Shakspeare  may  be  judged  from  this,  that  he  com- 
ments in  a  spirit  of  absolute  puerility  upon  the  name 
D6sdemona^  as  though  intentionally  formed  from  the 
Greek  word  for  superstition.  In  fact,  he  had  evidently 
read  little  beyond  the  list  of  names  in  Shakspeare ;  yet 
there  is  proof  enough  that  the  irresistible  beauty  of 
what  little  he  had  read  was  too  much  for  all  his  pedan- 
try, and  startled  him  exceedingly  ;  for  ever  afterwards 
he  speaks  of  Shakspeare  as  one  who,  with  a  little  aid 
from  Grecian  sources,  really  had  something  great  and 
proniising  about  him.  As  to  modern  authors,  neither 
this  Lord  Shaftesbury  nor  Addison  read  any  thing  for 
the  latter  years  of  their  lives  but  Bayle's  Dictionary. 
And  most  of  the  little  scintillations  of  erudition,  which 
may  be  found  in  the  notes  to  the  Characteristics,  and 
in  the  Essays  of  Addison,  are  derived,  almost  without 
exception,  and  uniformly  without  acknowledgment, 
from  Bayle.5 


SHAKSPEARE.  1& 

Finally,  with  regard  to  the  sweeping  assertion,  that 
*  for  nearly  a  hundred  years  after  his  death  Shak-  ^ 
speare  was  almost  entirely  neglected,'  we  shall  meet 
this  scandalous  falsehood,  by  a  rapid  view  of  his  for- 
tunes during  the  century  in  question.  The  tradition 
has  always  been,  that  Shakspeare  was  honored  by  the 
especial  notice  of  Queen  Elizabeth,  as  well  as  by  that 
of  James  I.  At  one  time  we  were  disposed  to  question 
the  truth  of  this  tradition ;  but  that  was  for  want  of 
having  read  attentively  the  lines  of  Ben  Jonson  to  the 
memory  of  Shakspeare,  those  generous  lines  which 
have  so  absurdly  been  taxed  with  faint  praise.  Jonson 
could  make  no  mistake  on  this  point ;  he,  as  one  of 
Shakspeare's  familiar  companions,  must  have  witnessed 
at  the  very  time,  and  accompanied  with  friendly  sym- 
pathy, every  motion  of  royal  favor  towards  Shakspeare. 
Now  »he,  in  words  which  leave  no  room  for  doubt,- 
exclaims, 

'  Sweet  swan  of  Avon,  what  a  sig^ht  it  were 
To  see  thee  in  our  waters  yet  appear  ; 
And  make  those  flights  upon  the  lianks  of  Thames, 
That  so  did  take  Eliza  and  our  James.' 

These  princes,  then,  were  taken,  were  fascinated,, 
with  some  of  Shakspeare's  dramas.  In  Elizabeth  the 
approbation  would  probably  be  sincere.  In  James  we 
can  readily  suppose  it  to  have  been  assumed ;  for  he 
was  a  pedant  in  a  different  sense  from  Lord  Shaftes- 
bury ;  not  from  undervaluing  modern  poetry,  but  from 
caring  little  or  nothing  for  any  poetry,  although  he 
wrote  about  its  mechanic  rules.  Still  the  royal  impri^ 
matur  would  be  influential  and  serviceable  no  less  • 
when  offered  hypocritically  than  in  full  sincerity.    Next 


20  SHAKSPEARE. 

let  us  consider,  at  the  very  moment  of  Shakspeare's 
death,  who  were  the  leaders  of  the  British  youth,  the 
principes  juveniutis,  in  the  two  fields,  equally  impor- 
tant to  a  great  poet's  fame,  of  rank  and  of  genius. 
The  Prince  of  Wales  and  John  Milton  ;  the  first  being 
then  about  sixteen  years  old,  the  other  about  eight. 
Now  these  two  great  powers,  as  we  may  call  them, 
these  presiding  stars  over  all  that  was  English  in 
thought  and  action,  were  both  impassioned  admirers  of 
Shakspeare.  Each  of  them  counts  for  many  thou- 
sands. The  Prince  of  Wales  ^  had  learned  to  appre- 
ciate Shakspeare,  not  originally  from  reading  him,  but 
from  witnessing  the  court  representations  of  his  plays 
at  Whitehall.  Afterwards  we  know  that  he  made 
Shakspeare  his  closet  companion,  for  he  was  re- 
proached with  doing  so  by  Milton.  And  we  know 
also,  from  the  just  criticism  pronounced  upon  the  char- 
acter and  diction  of  Caliban  by  one  of  Charles's  con- 
fidential counsellors.  Lord  Falkland,  that  the  king's 
admiration  of  Shakspeare  had  impressed  a  determina- 
tion upon  the  court  reading.  As  to  Milton,  by  double 
prejudices,  puritanical  and  classical,  his  mind  had  been 
preoccupied  against  the  full  impressions  of  Shakspeare. 
And  we  know  that  there  is  such  a  thing  as  keeping  the 
sympathies  of  love  and  admiration  in  a  dormant  state, 
or  state  of  abeyance ;  an  effort  of  self-conquest  real- 
ized in  more  cases  than  one  by  the  ancient  fathers, 
both  Greek  and  Latin,  with  regard  to  the  profane 
classics.  Intellectually  they  admired,  and  would  not 
belie  their  admiration;  but  they  did  not  give  their 
hearts  cordially,  they  did  not  abandon  themselves  to 
their  natural  impulses.     They  averted  their  eyes  and 


SHAKSPEARE.  21 

weaned  their  attention  from  the  dazzling  object.  Such, 
probably,  was  Mihon's  state  of  feeling  towards  Shak- 
speare  after  1642,  when  the  theatres  were  suppressed, 
and  the  fanatical  fervor  in  its  noontide  heat.  Yet  even 
then  he  did  not  belie  his  reverence  intellectually  for 
Shakspeare  :  and  in  his  younger  days  we  know  that  he 
had  spoken  more  enthusiastically  of  Shakspeare,  than 
he  ever  did  again  of  any  uninspired  author.  Not  only 
did  he  address  a  sonnet  to  his  memory,  in  which  he 
declares  that  kings  would  wish  to  die,  if  by  dying  they 
could  obtain  such  a  monument  in  the  hearts  of  men  ; 
but  he  also  speaks  of  him  in  his  II  Penseroso,  as  the 
tutelary  genius  of  the  English  stage.  In  this  transmis- 
sion of  the  torch  (XauTvadocpoQia)  Dryden  succeeds  to 
Milton ;  he  was  born  nearly  thirty  years  later ;  about 
thirty  years  they  were  contemporaries ;  and  by  thirty 
years,  or  nearly,  Dryden  survived  his  great  leader. 
Dryden,  in  fact,  lived  out  the  seventeenth  century. 
And  we  have  now  arrived  within  nine  years  of  the  era, 
when  the  critical  editions  started  in  hot  succession  to 
one  another.  The  names  we  have  mentioned  were 
the  great  influential  names  of  the  century.  But  of 
inferior  homage  there  was  no  end.  How  came  Better- 
ton  the  actor,  how  came  Davenant,  how  came  Rowe, 
or  Pope,  by  their  intense  (if  not  always  sound)  admira- 
tion for  Shakspeare,  unless  they  had  found  it  fuming 
upwards  iike  incense  to  the  pagan  deities  in  ancient 
times,  from  altars  erected  at  every  turning  upon  all  the 
paths  of  men  ? 

But  it  is  objected  that  inferior  dramatists  were  some- 
times preferred  to  Shakspeare ;  and  again  that  vile 
travesties  of  Shakspeare  were  preferred  to  the  authen- 


22  SHAKSPEARE. 

tic  dramas.  As  to  the  first  argument,  let  it  be  remem- 
bered, that  if  the  saints  in  the  chapel  are  always  in  the 
same  honor,  because  there  men  are  simply  discharging 
a  duty,  which  once  due  will  be  due  forever ;  the  saints 
of  the  theatre,  on  the  other  hand,  must  bend  to  the 
local  genius,  and  to  the  very  reasons  for  having  a 
theatre  at  all.  Men  go  thither  for  amusement.  This  is 
the  paramount  purpose,  and  even  acknowledged  merit 
or  absolute  superiority  must  give  way  to  it.  Does  a 
man  at  Paris  expect  to  see  Moliere  reproduced  in  pro- 
portion to  his  admitted  precedency  in  the  French 
drama  ?  On  the  contrary,  that  very  precedency  argues 
such  a  familiarization  with  his  works,  that  those  who 
are  in  quest  of  relaxation  will  reasonably  prefer  any 
recent  drama  to  that  which,  having  lost  all  its  novelty, 
has  lost  much  of  its  excitement.  We  speak  of  ordi- 
nary minds  ;  but  in  cases  of  public  entertainments, 
deriving  part  of  their  power  from  scenery  and  stage 
pomp,  novelty  is  for  all  minds  an  essential  condition  of 
attraction.  Moreover,  in  some  departments  of  the 
comic,  Beaumont  and  Fletcher,  when  writing  in  com- 
bination, really  had  a  freedom  and  breadth  of  manner 
which  excels  the  comedy  of  Shakspeare.  As  to  the 
altered  Shakspeare  as  taking  precedency  of  the  gen- 
uine Shakspeare,  no  argument  can  be  so  frivolous.  The 
public  were  never  allowed  a  choice  ;  the  great  majority 
of  an  audience  even  now  cannot  be  expected  to  carry 
the  real  Shakspeare  in  their  mind,  so  as  to  pursue  a 
comparison  between  that  and  the  alteration.  Their 
comparisons  must  be  exclusively  amongst  what  they 
have  opportunities  of  seeing;  that  is,  between  the 
various  pieces  presented  to  them  by  the  managers  of 


SHAKSPEARE.  533 

theatres.  Further  than  this,  it  is  impossible  for  them  to 
extend  their  office  of  judging  and  collating ;  and  the 
degenerate  taste  which  substituted  the  caprices  of 
Davenant,  the  rants  of  Dryden,  or  the  filth  of  Tate, 
for  the  jewellery  of  Shakspeare,  cannot  with  any 
justice  be  charged  upon  the  public,  not  one  in  a  thou- 
sand of  whom  was  furnished  with  any  means  of 
comparing,  but  exclusively  upon  those  (viz.,  theatrical 
managers,)  who  had  the  very  amplest.  Yet  even  in 
excuse  for  them  much  may  be  said.  The  very  length 
of  some  plays  compelled  them  to  make  alterations. 
(The  best  of  Shakspeare's  dramas.  King  Lear,  is  the 
{ least  fitted  for  representation ;  and  even  for  the  vilest 
alteration,  it  ought  in  candor  to  be  considered  that 
possession  is  nine  points  of  the  law.  He  who  would 
not  have  introduced,  was  often  obliged  to  retain. 

Finally,  it  is  urged  that  the  small  number  of  editions 
through  which  Shakspeare  passed  in  the  seventeenth 
century,  furnishes  a  separate  argument,  and  a  conclu- 
sive one  against  his  popularity.  We  answer,  that, 
considering  the  bulk  of  his  plays  collectively,  the 
editions  were  not  few.  Compared  with  any  known 
case,  the  copies  sold  of  Shakspeare  were  quite  as 
many  as  could  be  expected  under  the  circumstances. 
Ten  or  fifteen  times  as  much  consideration  went  to  the 
purchase  of  one  great  folio  like  Shakspeare,  as  would 
attend  the  purchase  of  a  little  volume  like  Waller  or 
Donne.  Without  reviews,  or  newspapers,  or  adver- 
tisements, to  diffuse  the  knowledge  of  books,  the 
progress  of  literature  was  necessarily  slow,  and  its 
expansion  narrow.  But  this  is  a  topic  which  has 
always  been  treated  unfairly,  not  with  regard  to  Shak- 


24  SHAKSPEAEE. 

speare  only,  but  to  Milton,  as  well  as  many  others. 
"  v^;;^^'  The  truth  is,  we  have  not  facts  enough  to  guide  us ; 
j^  for  the  number  of  editions  often  tells  nothing  accurately 
^  as  to  the  number  of  copies.  With  respect  to  Shak- 
s»  speare   it  is  certain,  that,  had  his  masterpieces  been 

gathered  into  small  volumes,  Shakspeare  would  have 
had  a  most  extensive  sale.  As  it  was,  there  can  be 
no  doubt,  that  from  his  own  generation,  throughout  the 
seventeenth  century,  and  until  the  eighteenth  began  to 
accommodate,  not  any  greater  popularity  in  him,  but  a 
greater  taste  for  reading  in  the  public,  his  fame  never 
ceased  to  be  viewed  as  a  national  trophy  of  honor; 
and  the  most  illustrious  men  of  the  seventeenth  century 
were  no  whit  less  fervent  in  their  admiration  than  those 
of  the  eighteenth  and  the  nineteenth,  either  as  re- 
spected its  strength  and  sincerity,  or  as  respected  its 
open  profession."^ 

It  is  therefore  a  false  notion,  that  the  general  sympa- 
thy with  the  merits  of  Shakspeare  ever  beat  with  a 
languid  or  intermitting  pulse.  Undoubtedly,  in  times 
when  the  functions  of  critical  journals  and  of  news- 
papers were  not  at  hand  to  diffuse  or  to  strengthen  the 
impressions  which  emanated  from  the  capital,  all  opin- 
ions must  have  travelled  slowly  into  the  provinces. 
But  even  then,  whilst  the  perfect  organs  of  communi- 
nication  were  wanting,  indirect  substitutes  were  supplied 
by  the  necessities  of  the  times,  or  by  the  instincts  of 
political  zeal.  Two  channels  especially  lay  open 
between  the  great  central  organ  of  the  national  mind, 
and  the  remotest  provinces.  Parliaments  were  occa- 
sionally summoned,  (for  the  judges'  circuits  were  too 
brief  to  produce  much  effect,)  and  during  their  longest 


SHAKSPEARE.  25 

suspensions,  the  nobility,  with  large  retinues,  continu- 
ally resorted  to  the  court.  But  an  intercourse  more 
constant  and  more  comprehensive  was  maintained 
through  the  agency  of  the  two  universities.  Already, 
in  the  time  of  James  I.,  the  growing  importance  of  the 
gentry,  and  the  consequent  birth  of  a  new  interest  in 
political  questions,  had  begun  to  express  itself  at 
Oxford,  and  still  more  so  at  Cambridge.  Academic 
persons  stationed  themselves  as  sentinels  at  London, 
for  the  purpose  of  watching  the  court  and  the  course 
of  public  affairs.  These  persons  wrote  letters,  like 
those  of  the  celebrated  Joseph  Mode,  which  we  find  in 
Ellis's  Historical  Collections,  reporting  to  their  fellow- 
collegians  all  the  novelties  of  public  life  as  they  arose, 
or  personally  carried  down  such  reports,  and  thus 
conducted  the  general  feelings  at  the  centre  into  lesser 
centres,  from  which  again  they  were  diffused  into  the 
ten  thousand  parishes  of  England ;  for,  (with  a  very 
few  exceptions  in  favor  of  poor  benefices,  Welsh  or 
Cumbrian,)  every  parish  priest  must  unavoidably  have 
spent  his  three  years  at  one  or  other  of  the  English 
universities.  And  by  this  mode  of  diffusion  it  is,  that 
we  can  explain  the  strength  with  which  Shakspeare's 
thoughts  and  diction  impressed  themselves  from  a  very 
early  period  upon  the  national  literature,  and  even 
more  generally  upon  the  national  thinking  and  conver- 
sation.^ 

The  question,  therefore,  revolves  upon  us  in  three- 
fold difficulty  —  How,  having  stepped  thus  prematurely 
into  this  inheritance  of  fame,  leaping,  as  it  were,  thus 
abruptly  into  the  favor  alike  of  princes  and  the  enemies 
of  princes,  had  it  become  possible  that  in  his  native 


26  SHAKSPEARE. 

place,  (honored  still  more  in  the  final  testimonies  of 
his  preference  when  founding  a  family  mansion,)  such 
a  man's  history,  and  the  personal  recollections  which 
cling  so  affectionately  to  the  great  intellectual  poten- 
tates who  have  recommended  themselves  by  gracious 
manners,  could  so  soon  and  so  utterly  have  been 
obliterated  ? 

Malone,  with  childish  irreflection,  ascribes  the  loss 
of  such  memorials  to  the  want  of  enthusiasm  in  his 
admirers.  Local  researches  into  private  history  had 
not  then  commenced.  Such  a  taste,  often  petty 
enough  in  its  management,  was  the  growth  of  after 
ages.  Else  how  came  Spenser's  life  and  fortunes^  to 
be  so  utterly  overwhelmed  in  oblivion  ?  No  poet  of  a 
high  order  could  be  more  popular. 

The  answer  we  believe  to  be  this :  Twenty-six  years 
after  Shakspeare's  death  commenced  the  great  parlia- 
mentary war.  This  it  was,  and  the  local  feuds  arising 
to  divide  family  from  family,  brother  from  brother, 
upon  which  we  must  charge  the  extinction  of  traditions 
and  memorials,  doubtless  abundant  up  to  that  era. 
The  parliamentary  contest,  it  will  be  said,  did  not  last 
above  three  years ;  the  king's  standard  having  been 
first  raised  at  Nottingham  in  August,.  1642,  and  the 
battle  of  Naseby  (which  terminated  the  open  warfare) 
having  been  fought  in  June,  1645.  Or  even  if  we 
extend  its  duration  to  the  surrender  of  the  last  garrison, 
that  war  terminated  in  the  spring  of  1646.  And  the 
brief  explosions  of  insurrection  or  of  Scottish  inva- 
sion, which  occurred  on  subsequent  occasions,  were 
all  locally  confined,  and  none  came  n^ar  to  Warwick- 
shire, except  the  battle  of  Worcester,  more  than  five 


SHAKSPEARE.  27 

years '  after.  This  is  true ;  but  a  short  war  will  do 
much  to  efface  recent  and  merely  personal  memorials. 
And  the  following  circumstances  of  the  war  were  even 
more  important  than  the  general  fact. 

First  of  all,  the  very  mansion  founded  by  Shaks- 
peare  became  the  military  head-quarters  for  the  queen, 
in  1644,  when  marching  from  the  eastern  coast  of 
England  to  join  the  king  in  Oxford  ;  and  one  such 
special  visitation  would  be  likely  to  do  more  serious 
mischief  in  the  way  of  extinction,  than  many  years  of 
general  warfare.  Secondly,  as  a  fact,  perhaps,  equally 
important,  Birmingham,  the  chief  town  of  Warwick- 
shire, and  the  adjacent  district,  the  seat  of  our  hard- 
ware manufactures,  was  the  very  focus  of  disaffection 
towards  the  royal  cause.  Not  only,  therefore,  would 
this  whole  region  suffer  more  from  internal  and  sponta- 
neous agitation,  but  it  would  be  the  more  frequently 
traversed  vindictively  from  without,  and  harassed  by 
flying  parties  from  Oxford,  or  others  of  the  king's 
garrisons.  Thirdly,  even  apart  from  the  political 
aspects  of  Warwickshire,  this  county  happens  to  be 
the  central*  one  of  England,  as  regards  the  roads 
between  the  north  and  south ;  and  Birmingham  has 
long  been  the  great  central  axis,^  in  which  all  the  radii 
from  the  four  angles  of  England  proper  meet  and 
intersect.  Mere  accident,  therefore,  of  local  position, 
much  more  when  united  with  that  avowed  inveteracy 
of  malignant  feeling,  which  was  bitter  enough  to  rouse 
a  re-action  of  bitterness  in  the  mind  of  Lord  Clarendon, 
would  go  far  to  account  for  the  wreck  of  many  memo- 
rials relating  to  Shakspeare,  as  well  as  for  the  subver- 
sion of  that  quiet   and   security  for   humble   life,  in 


28  SHAKSPEARE. 

which  the  traditional  memory  finds  its  best  nidus. 
\Thus  we  obtain  one  solution,  and  perhaps  the  main 
lone,  of  the  otherwise  mysterious  oblivion  which  had 
swept  away  all  traces  of  the  mighty  poet,  by  the  time 
when  those  quiet  days  revolved  upon  England,  in 
which  again  the  solitary  agent  of  learned  research 
might  roam  in  security  from  house  to  house,  gleaning 
those  personal  remembrances  which,  even  in  the  fury 
of  civil  strife,  might  long  have  lingered  by  the  chimney 
corner.  But  the  fierce  furnace  of  war  had  probably, 
by  its  local  ravages,  scorched  this  field  of  natural 
tradition,  and  thinned  the  gleaner's  inheritance  by  three 
parts  out  of  four.  This,  we  repeat,  may  be  one  part 
of  the  solution  to  this  difficult  problem. 

And  if  another  is  still  demanded,  possibly  it  may  be 
found  in  the  fact,  hostile  to  the  perfect  consecration  of 
Shakspeare's  memory,  that  after  all  he  was  a  player. 
Many  a  coarse-minded  country  gentleman,  or  village 
pastor,  who  would  have  held  his  town  glorified  by  the 
distinction  of  having  sent  forth  a  great  judge  or  an 
eminent  bishop,  might  disdain  to  cherish  the  personal 
recollections  which  surrounded  one  whom  custom 
regarded  as  little  above  a  mountebank,  and  the  illiberal 
law  as  a  vagabond.  The  same  degrading  appreciation 
attached  both  to  the  actor  in  plays  and  to  their  author. 
The  contemptuous  appellation  of  *  play -book,'  served 
as  readily  to  degrade  the  mighty  volume  which  con- 
tained Lear  and  Hamlet,  as  that  of  'play-actor,'  or 
*  player-man,'  has  always  served  with  the  illiberal  or 
the  fanatical  to  dishonor  the  persons  of  Roscius  or  of 
Garrick,  of  Talma  or  of  Siddons.  Nobody,  indeed, 
was  better  aware  of  this  than  the  noble-minded  Shak- 


SHAKSPEARE.  29 

speare;  and  feelingly  he  has  breathed  forth  in  his 
sonnets  this  conscious  oppression  under  which  he  lay 
of  public  opinion,  unfavorable  by  a  double  title  to  his 
own  pretensions ;  for,  being  both  dramatic  author  and 
dramatic  performer,  he  found  himself  heir  to  a  two- 
fold opprobrium,  and  at  an  era  of  English  society 
when  the  weight  of  that  opprobrium  was  heaviest.  In 
reality,  there  was  at  this  period  a  collision  of  forces 
acting  in  opposite  directions  upon  the  estimation  of  the 
stage  apd  scenical  art,  and  therefore  of  all  the  ministers 
in  its  equipage.  Puritanism  frowned  upon  these  pur- 
suits, as  ruinous  to  public  morals ;  on  the  other  hand, 
loyalty  could  not  but  tolerate  what  was  patronized  by 
the  sovereign  ;  and  it  happened  that  Elizabeth,  James, 
and  Charles  I.,  were  all  alike  lovers  and  promoters  of 
theatrical  amusements,  which  were  indeed  more  indis- 
pensable to  the  relief  of  court  ceremony,  and  the 
monotony  of  aulic  pomp,  than  in  any  other  region  of 
life.  This  royal  support,  and  the  consciousness  that 
any  brilliant  success  in  these  arts  implied  an  unusual 
share  of  natural  endowments,  did  something  in  mitiga- 
tion of  a  scorn  which  must  else  have  been  intolerable 
to  all  generous  natures. 

But  whatever  prejudice  might  thus  operate  against 
the  perfect  sanctity  of  Shakspeare's  posthumous  repu- 
tation, it  is  certain  that  the  splendor  of  his  worldly 
success  must  have  done  much  to  obliterate  that  effect ; 
his  admirable  colloquial  talents  a  good  deal,  and  his 
gracious  affability  still  more.  The  wonder,  therefore, 
will  still  remain,  that  Betterton,  in  less  than  a  century 
from  his  death,  should  have  been  able  to  glean  so 
little.     And  for  the  solution  of  this  wonder,  we  must 


30  SHAKSPEARE. 

throw  ourselves  chiefly  upon  the  explanations  we  have 
made  as  to  the  parliamentary  war,  and'  the  local 
ravages  of  its  progress  in  the  very  district,  of  the  very 
town,  and  the  very  house. 

If  further  arguments  are  still  wanted  to  explain  this 
mysterious  abolition,  we  may  refer  the  reader  to  the 
following  succession  of  disastrous  events,  by  which  it 
should  seem  that  a  perfect  malice  of  misfortune  pur- 
sued the  vestiges  of  the  mighty  poet's  steps.  In  1613, 
the  Globe  theatre,  with  which  he  had  been  so  long 
connected,  was  burned  to  the  ground.  Soon  afterwards 
a  great  fire  occurred  in  Stratford ;  and  next,  (without 
counting  upon  the  fire  of  London  ;  just  fifty  years  after 
his  death,  which,  however,  would  consume  many  an 
important  record  from  periods  far  more  remote,  (the 
house  of  Ben  Jonson,  in  which  probably,  as  Mr.  Camp- 
bell suggests,  might  be  parts  of  his  correspondence, 
was  also  burned.  Finally,  there  was  an  old  tradition 
that  Lady  Barnard,  the  sole  grand-daughter  of  Shak- 
speare,  had  carried  off  many  of  his  papers  from 
Stratford,  and  these  papers  have  never  since  been 
traced. 

In  many  of  the  elder  lives  it  has  been  asserted,  that 
John  Shakspeare,  the  father  of  the  poet,  was  a  butcher, 
and  in  others  that  he  was  a  woolstapler.  It  is  now 
settled  beyond  dispute  that  he  was  a  glover.  This  was 
his  professed  occupation  in  Stratford,  though  it  is  cer- 
tain that,  with  this  leading  trade,  from  which  he  took 
his  denomination,  he  combined  some  collateral  pur- 
suits; and  it  is  possible  enough  that,  as  openings 
offered,  he  may  have  meddled  with  many.  In  that 
age,   in   a  provincial  town,   nothing  like   the   exqui- 


SHAKSPEARE.  31 

site  subdivision  of  labor  was  attempted  which  we  now 
see  reali2ted  in  the  great  cities  of  Christendom.  And 
one  trade  is  often  found  to  play  into  another  with  so 
much  reciprocal  advantage,  that  even  in  our  own  days 
we  do  not  much  wonder  at  an  enterprising  man,  in 
country  places,  who  combines  several  in  his  own 
person.  Accordingly,  John  Shakspeare  is  known  to 
have  united  with  his  town  calling  the  rural  and  miscel- 
laneous occupations  of  a  farmer. 

Meantime  his  avowed  business  stood  upon  a  very 
different  footing  from  the  same  trade  as  it  is  exercised 
in  modern  times.  Gloves  were  in  that  age  an  article 
of  dress  more  costly  by  much,  and  more  elaborately 
decorated,  than  in  our  own.  They  were  a  customary 
present  from  some  cities  to  the  judges  of  assize,  and  to 
other  official  persons ;  a  custom  of  ancient  standing, 
and  in  some  places,  we  believe,  still  subsisting  ;  and  in 
such  cases  it  is  reasonable  to  suppose  that  the  gloves 
must  originally  have  been  more  valuable  than  the 
trivial  modern  article  of  the'  same  name.  So  also, 
perhaps,  in  their  origin,  of  the  gloves  given  at  funerals. 
In  reality,  whenever  the  simplicity  of  an  age  makes  it 
difficult  to  renew  the  parts  of  a  wardrobe,  except  in 
capital  towns  of  difficult  access,  prudence  suggests  that 
such  wares  should  be  manufactured  of  more  durable 
materials ;  and,  being  so,  they  become  obviously  sus- 
ceptible of  more  lavish  ornament.  But  it  will  not 
follow,  from  this  essential  difference  in  the  gloves  of 
Shakspeare's  age,  that  the  glover's  occupation  was 
more  lucrative.  Doubtless  he  sold  more  costly  gloves, 
and  upon  each  pair  had  a  larger  profit,  but  for  that 
very  reason  he  sold  fewer.     Two  or  three  gentlemen 


32  SHAKSPEARE. 

'  of  worship '  in  the  neighborhood  might  occasionally 
require  a  pair  of  gloves,  but  it  is  very  doubtful*  whether 
any  inhabitant  of  Stratford  would  ever  call  for  so  mere 
a  luxury. 

The  practical  result,  at  all  events,  of  John  Shak- 
speare's  various  pursuits,  does  not  appear  permanently 
to  have  met  the  demands  of  his  establishment,  and  in 
his  maturer  years  there  are  indications  still  surviving 
that  he  was  under  a  cloud  of  embarrassment.  He 
certainly  lost  at  one  time  his  social  position  in  the  town 
of  Stratford  ;  but  there  is  a  strong  presumption,  in  our 
construction  of  the  case,  that  he  finally  retrieved  it ; 
and  for  this  retrieval  of  a  station,  which  he  had 
forfeited  by  personal  misfortunes  or  neglect,  he  was 
altogether  indebted  to  the  filial  piety  of  his  immortal 
son. 

Meantime  the  earlier  years  of  the  elder  Shakspeare 
wore  the  aspect  of  rising  prosperity,  however  unsound 
might  be  the  basis  on  which  it  rested.  There  can  be 
little  doubt  that  William  Shakspeare,  from  his  birth  up 
^o  his  tenth  or  perhaps  his  eleventh  year,  lived  in  care- 
less plenty,  and  saw  nothing  in  his  father's  house  but 
that  style  of  liberal  house-keeping,  which  has  ever 
distinguished  the  upper  yeomanry  and  the  rural  gentry 
of  England.  Probable  enough  it  is,  that  the  resources 
for  meeting  this  liberality  were  not  strictly  commen- 
surate with  the  family  income,  but  were  sometimes 
allowed  to  entrench,  by  means  of  loans  or  mortgages, 
upon  capital  funds.  The  stress  upon  the  family  finan- 
ces was  perhaps  at  times  severe  ;  and  that  it  was  borne 
at  all,  must  be  imputed  to  the  large  and  even  splendid 
portion  which  John  Shakspeare  received  with  his  wife. 


SHAKSPEARE.  33 

This  lady,  for  such  she  really  was  in  an  eminent 
sense,  by  birth  as  well  as  by  connections,  bore  the 
beautiful  name  of  Mary  Arden,  a  name  derived  from 
the  ancient  forest  district ^°  of  the  country;  and  doubt- 
less she  merits  a  more  elaborate  notice  than  our  slen- 
der materials  will  furnish.  To  have  been  the  mother  of 
Shakspeare, —  how  august  a  title  to  the  reverence  of 
infinite  generations  and  of  centuries  beyond  the  vision 
of  prophecy.  A  plausible  hypothesis  has  been  started 
in  modern  times,  that  the  facial  structure,  and  that  the 
intellectual  conformation,  may  be  deduced  more  fre- 
quently from  the  corresponding  characteristics  in  the  i 
mother  than  in  the  father.  It  is  certain  that  no  very 
great  man  has  ever  existed,  but  that  his  greatness  has 
been  rehearsed  and  predicted  in  one  or  other  of  his 
parents.  And  it  cannot  be  denied  that  in  the  most 
eminent  men,  where  we  have  had  the  means  of  pursu- 
ing the  investigation,  the  mother  has  more  frequently 
been  repeated  and  reproduced  than  the  father.  We 
have  known  cases  where  the  mother  has  furnished  all 
the  intellect,  and  the  father  all  the  moral  sensibility, 
upon  which  assumption,  the  wonder  ceases  that  Cicero, 
Lord  Chesterfield,  and  other  brilliant  men,  who  took 
the  utmost  pains  with  their  sons,  should  have  failed  so 
conspicuously ;  for  possibly  the  mothers  had  been 
women  of  excessive  and  even  exemplary  stupidity. 
In  the  case  of  Shakspeare,  each  parent,  if  we  had  any 
means  of  recovering  their  characteristics,  could  not  fail 
to  furnish  a  study  of  the  most  profound  interest  ;  and 
with  regard  to  his  mother  in  particular,  if  the  modern 
hypothesis  be  true,  and  if  we  are  indeed  to  deduce  \ 
from  her  the  stupendous  intellect  of  her  son,  in  that 
3 


34  SHAKSPEARE. 

case  she  must  have  been  a  benefactress  to  her  hus- 
band's family,  beyond  the  promises  of  fairy  land  or  the 
dreams  of  romance  ;  for  it  is  certain  that  to  her  chiefly 
this  family  was  also  indebted  for  their  worldly  comfort. 
Mary  Arden  was  the  youngest  daughter  and  the 
heiress  of  Robert  Arden,  of  Wilmecote,  Esq.,  in  the 
county  of  Warwick.  The  family  of  Arden  was  even 
then  of  great  antiquity.  About  one  century  and  a 
quarter  before  the  birth  of  William  Shakspeare,  a 
person  bearing  the  same  name  as  his  maternal  grand- 
father had  been  returned  by  the  commissioners  in  their 
list  of  the  Warwickshire  gentry  ;  he  was  there  styled 
Robert  Arden,  Esq.,  of  Bromich.  This  was  in  1433, 
or  the  ]2th  year  of  Henry  VI.  In  Henry  VII.'s  reign, 
the  Ardens  received  a  grant  of  lands  from  the  crown  ; 
and  in  1568,  four  years  after  the  birth  of  William 
Shakspeare,  Edward  Arden,  of  the  same  family,  was 
sheriff  of  the  county.  Mary  Arden  was,  therefore,  a 
young  lady  of  excellent  descent  and  connections,  and 
an  heiress  of  considerable  wealth.  She  brought  to  her 
husbandj  as  her  marriage  portion,  the  landed  estate  of 
Asbies,  which,  upon  any  just  Valuation,  must  be  con- 
sidered as  a  handsome  dowry  for  a  woman  of  her 
station.  As  this  point  has  been  contested,  and  as  it 
goes  a  great  way  towards  determining  the  exact  social 
position  of  the  poet's  parents,  let  us  be  excused  for 
sifting  it  a  little  more  narrowly  than  might  else  seem 
warranted  by  the  proportions  of  our  present  life. 
Every  question  which  it  can  be  reasonable  to  raise  at 
all,  it  must  be  reasonable  to  treat  with  at  least  so  much 
of  minute  research,  as  may  justify  the  conclusions 
which  it  is  made  to  support. 


SHAKSPEARE.  \'  /'C 

I' 

The  estate  of  Asbies  contained  fii>y  *ij1««.of  arable- 
land,  six  of  meadow,  and  a  right  of  "commonage. 
What  may  we  assume  to  have  been  the  value  of  its 
fee-simple  ?  Malone,  who  allows  the  total  fortune  of 
Mary  Arden  to  have  been  .£110  135.  4d.,  is  sure  that 
the  value  of  Asbies  could  not  have  been  more  than  one 
hundred  pounds.  But  why  ?  Because,  says  he,  the 
'  average '  rent  of  land  at  that  time  was  no  more  than 
three  shillings  per  acre.  This  we  deny  ;  .but  upon  that 
assumption,  the  total  yearly  rent  of  fifty-six  acres 
would  be  exactly  eight  guineas.^!  And  therefore,  in 
assigning  the  value  of  Asbies  at  one  hundred  pounds, 
it  appears  that  Malone  must  have  estimated  the  land 
at  no  more  than  twelve  years'  purchase,  which  would 
carry  the  value  to  <£100  16s.  '  Even  at  this  esti- 
mate,' as  the  latest  annotator^^  on  this  suh}ect  justly 
observes,  '  Mary  Arden's  portion  was  a  larger  one 
than  was  usually  given  to  a  landed  gentleman's  daugh- 
ter.' But  this  writer  objects  to  Malone's  principle  of 
valuation.  *  We  find,'  says  he,  *  that  John  Shak- 
speare  also  farmed  the  meadow  of  Tugton,  containing 
sixteen  acres,  at  the  rate  of  eleven  shillings  per  acre. 
Now  what  proof  has  Mr.  Malone  adduced,  that  the 
acres  of  Asbies  were  not  as  valuable  as  those  of  Tug- 
ton  ?  And  if  they  were  so,  the  former  estate  must 
have  been  worth  between  three  and  four  hundred 
pounds.'  In  the  main  drift  of  his  objections  we  con- 
cur with  Mr.  Campbell.  But  as  they  are  liable  to  some 
criticism,  let  us  clear  the  ground  of  all  plausible  cavils, 
and  then  see  what  will  be  the  result.  Malone,  had  he 
been  alive,  would  probably  have  answered,  that  Tugton 
was  a  farm  especially  privileged  by  nature ;  and  that  if 


( 


36  /  SHAKSPEAEE. 


any  man  contended  for  so  unusual  a  rent  as  eleven 
shillings  an  acre  for  land  not  known  to  him,  the  onus 
prohandi  would  lie  upon  him.  Be  it  so ;  eleven  shil- 
lings is  certainly  above  the  ordinary  level  of  rent,  but 
three  shillings  is  below  it.  We  contend,  that  for 
tolerably  good  land,  situated  advantageously,  that  is, 
with  a  ready  access  to  good  markets  and  good  fairs, 
such  as  those  of  Coventry,  Birmingham,  Gloucester, 
Worcester,  Shrewsbury,  &c.,  one  noble  might  be 
assumed  as  the  annual  rent ;  and  that  in  such  situations 
twenty  years'  purchase  was  not  a  valuation,  even  in 
Elizabeth's  reign,  very  unusual.  Let  us,  however, 
assume  the  rent  at  only  five  shillings,  and  land  at 
sixteen  years'  purchase.  Upon  this  basis,  the  rent 
would  be  £14,  and  the  value  of  the  fee  simple  ,£224. 
Now,  if  it  were  required  to  equate  that  sum  with  its 
present  value,  a  very  operose  ^^  calculation  might  be 
requisite.  But  contenting  ourselves  with  the  gross 
method  of  making  such  equations  between  1560  and 
the  current  century,  that  is,  multiplying  by  five,  we 
shall  find  the  capital  value  of  the  estate  to  be  eleven 
hundred  and  twenty  pounds,  whilst  the  annual  rent 
would  be  exactly  seventy.  But  if  the  estate  had  been 
sold,  and  the  purchase-money  lent  upon  mortgage, 
(the  only  safe  mode  of  investing  money  at  that  time,) 
the  annual  interest  would  have  reached  ,£28,  equal  to 
J^140  of  modern  money ;  for  mortgages  in  Elizabeth's 
age  readily  produced  ten  per  cent. 

A  woman  who  should  bring  at  this  day  an  annual 
income  of  £140  to  a  provincial  tradesman,  living  in  a 
sort  of  rus  in  urie,  according  to  the  simple  fashions  of 
rustic  life,  would  assuredly  be  considered  as  an  excel- 


SHAKSPEARE.  37 

lent  match.  And  there  can  be  little  doubt  that  Mary 
Arden's  dowry  it  was  which,  for  some  ten  or  a  dozen 
years  succeeding  to  his  marriage,  raised  her  husband 
to  so  much  social  consideration  in  Stratford.  In  1550 
John  Shakspeare  is  supposed  to  have  first  settled  in 
Stratford,  having  migrated  from  some  other  part  of 
Warwickshire.  In  1557  he  married  Mary  Arden ;  in 
1565,  the  year  subsequent  to  the  birth  of  his  son 
William,  his  third  child,  he  was  elected  one  of  the 
aldermen ;  and  in  the  year  1568  he  became  first  mag- 
istrate of  the  town,  by  the  title  of  high  bailiff*.  This 
year  we  may  assume  to  have  been  that  in  which  the 
prosperity  of  this  family  reached  its  zenith ;  for  in  this 
year  it  was,  over  and  above  the  presumptions  furnished 
by  his  civic  honors,  that  he  obtained  a  grant  of  arms 
from  Clarencieux  of  the  Heralds'  College.  On  this 
occasion  he  declared  himself  worth  five  hundred  pounds 
derived  from  his  ancestors.  And  we  really  cannot  un- 
derstand the  right  by  which  critics,  living  nearly  three 
centuries  from  his  time,  undertake  to  know  his  affairs 
better  than  himself,  and  to  tax  him  with  either  inaccu- 
racy or  falsehood.  No  man  would  be  at  leisure  to 
court  heraldic  honors,  when  he  knew  himself  tcf  be 
embarrassed,  or  apprehended  that  he  soon  might  be  so. 
A  man  whose  anxieties  had  been  fixed  at  all  upon  his 
daily  livelihood  would,  by  this  cha^  after  the  aerial 
honors  of  heraldry,  have  made  himself  a  butt  for 
ridicule,  such  as  no  fortitude  could  enable  him  to 
sustain. 

In  1568,  therefore,  when  his  son  William  would  be 
moving  through  his  fifth  year,  John  Shakspeare,  (now 
honored  by  the  designation  of  Master^)  would  be  found 


38  SHAKSPEARE. 

at  times  in  the  society  of  the  neighboring  gentry.  Ten 
years  in  advance  of  this  period  he  was  already  in 
difRcuhies.  But  there  is  no  proof  that  these  difficulties 
had  then  reached  a  point  of  degradation,  or  of  memo- 
rable distress.  The  sole  positive  indications  of  his 
decaying  condition  are,  that  in  1578  he  received  an 
exemption  from  the  small  weekly  assessment  levied 
upon  the  aldermen  of  Stratford  for  the  relief  of  the 
poor;  and  that  in  the  following  year,  1579,  he  is  found 
enrolled  amongst  the  defaulters  in  the  payment  of 
taxes.  The  latter  fact  undoubtedly  goes  to  prove  that, 
like  every  man  who  is  falling  back  in  the  world,  he 
was  occasionally  in  arrears.  Paying  taxes  is  not  like 
the  honors  awarded  or  the  processions  regulated  by 
Clarencieux  ;  no  man  is  ambitious  of  precedency  there ; 
and  if  a  laggard  pace  in  that  duty  is  to  be  received  as 
evidence  of  pauperism,  nine  tenths  of  the  English 
people  might  occasionally  be  classed  as  paupers. 
With  respect  to  his  liberation  from  the  weekly  assess- 
ment, that  may  bear  a  construction  different  from  the 
one  which  it  has  received.  This  payment,  which 
could  never  have  been  regarded  as  a  burthen,  not 
amounting  to  five  pounds  annually  of  our  present 
money,  may  have  been  held  up  as  an  exponent  of 
wealth  and  consideration ;  and  John  Shakspeare  may 
have  been  required  to  resign  it  as  an  honorable  distinc- 
tion, not  suitable  to  the  circumstances  of  an  embar- 
rassed man.  Finally,  the  fact  of  his  being  indebted  to 
Robert  Sadler,  a  baker,  in.  the  sum  of  five  pounds,  and 
his  being  under  the  necessity  of  bringing  a  friend  as 
security  for  the  payment,  proves  nothing  at  all.  There 
is  not  a  town  in  Europe,  in  which  opulent  men  cannot 


SHAKBPEARE.  39 

be  found  that  are  backward  in  the  payment  of  their 
debts.  And  the  probability  is,  that  Master  Sadler  acted 
like  most  people  who,  when  they  suppose  a  man  to  be 
going  down  in  the  world,  feel  their  respect  for  him 
sensibly  decaying,  and  think  it  wise  to  trample  him 
under  foot,  provided  only  in  that  act  of  trampling  they 
can  squeeze  out  of  him  their  own  individual  debt. 
Like  that  terrific  chorus  in  Spohr's  oratorio  of  St. 
Paul,  '  Stone  Mm  to  death,"*  is  the  cry  of  the  selfish 
and  the  illiberal  amongst  creditors,  alike  towards  the 
just  and  the  unjust  amongst  debtors. 

It  was  the  wise  and  beautiful  prayer  of  Agar,  'Give 
me  neither  poverty  nor  riches;'  and,  doubtless,  for 
quiet,  for  peace,  and  the  latentis  semita  vitcB,  that  is 
the  happiest  dispensation.  But,  perhaps,  with  a  view 
to  a  school  of  discipline  and  of  moral  fortitude,  it  might 
be  a  more  salutary  prayer,  *  Give  me  riches  and 
poverty,  and  afterwards  neither.'  For  the  transitional 
state  between  riches  and  poverty  will  teach  a  lesson 
both  as  to  the  baseness  and  the  goodness  of  human 
nature,  and  will  impress  that  lesson  with  a  searching 
force,  such  as  no  borrowed  experience  ever  can  ap- 
proach. Most  probable  it  is  that  Shakspeare  drewi 
some  of  his  powerful  scenes  in 'the  Timon  of  Athens,  I 
those  which  exhibit  the  vileness  of  ingratitude  and  the 
impassioned  frenzy  of  misanthropy,  from  his  personal 
recollections  connected  with  the  case  of  his  own  father. 
Possibly,  though  a  cloud  of  two  hundred  and  seventy 
years  now  veils  it,  this  very  Master  Sadler,  who  was 
so  urgent  for  his  five  pounds,  and  who  so  little 
apprehended  that  he  should  be  called  over  the  coals 
for   it   in   the    Encyclopsedia    Britannica,    may    have 


40  SHAKSPEAEE. 

sate    for   the    portrait   of   that  Lucullus  who  says  of 
Timon : 

'  Alas,  good  lord  !  a  noble  gentleman 
'tis,  if  he  would  not  keep  so  good  a  house.  Many  a  time  and  often 
I  have  dined  with  him,  and  told  him  on't ;  and  come  again  to 
supper  to  him,  of  purpose  to  have  him  spend  less  ;  and  yet  he 
would  embrace  no  counsel,  take  no  warning  by  my  coming.  Every 
man  has  his  fault,  and  honesty  is  his ;  I  have  told  him  on't ;  but  I 
could  never  get  him  from  it.' 

For  certain  years,  perhaps,  John  Shakspeare  moved 
on  in  darkness  and  sorrow  : 

*  His  familiars  from  his  buiied  fortunes 
Slunk  all  away;  left  their  false  vows  with  him, 
Like  empty  purses  pick'd  ;  and  his  poor  self, 
A  dedicated  beggar  to  the  air. 
With  his  disease  of  all  shunn'd  poverty, 
VValk'd,  like  contempt,  alone.' 

We,  however,  at  this  day,  are  chiefly  interested  in 
the  case  as  it  bears  upon  the  education  and  youthful 
[happiness  of  the  poet.  Now  if  we  suppose  that  from 
1568,  the  high  noon  of  the  family  prosperity,  to  1578, 
the  first  year  of  their  mature  embarrassments,  one  half 
the  interval  was  passed  in  stationary  sunshine,  and  the 
latter  half  in  the  gradual  twilight  of  declension,  it  will 
follow  that  the  young  William  had  completed  his  tenth 
year  before  he  heard  the  first  signals  of  distress  ;  and 
for  so  long  a  period  his  education  would  probably  be 
conducted  on  as  liberal  a  scale  as  the  resources  of 
Stratford  would  allow.  Through  this  earliest  section 
of  his  life  he  would  undoubtedly  rank  as  a  gentleman's 
son,  possibly  as  the  leader  of  his  class,  in  Stratford. 
But  what  rank  he  held  through  the  next  ten  years,  or, 
more  generally,  what  was  the  standing  in  society  of 


SHAKSPEARE.  41 

Shakspeare  until  he  had  created  a  new  station  for  him- 
self by  his  own  exertions  in  the  metropolis,  is  a  ques- 
tion yet  unsettled,  but  which  has  been  debated  as 
keenly  as  if  it  had  some  great  dependencies.  Upon 
this  we  shall  observe,  that  could  we  by  possibility  be 
called  to  settle  beforehand  what  rank  were  best  for 
favoring  the  development  of  intellectual  powers,  the 
question  might  wear  a  face  of  deep  practical  impor- 
tance ;  but  when  the  question  is  simply  as  to  a  matter 
of  fact,  what  was  the  rank  held  by  a  man  whose  intel- 
lectual development  has  long  ago  been  completed,  this 
becomes  a  mere  question  of  curiosity.  The  tree  has 
fallen ;  it  is  confessedly  the  noblest  of  all  the  forest ; 
and  we  must  therefore  conclude  that  the  soil  in  which 
it  flourished  was  either  the  best  possible,  or,  if  not  so, 
that  any  thing  bad  in  its  properties  had  been  disarmed 
and  neutralized  by  the  vital  forces  of  the  plant,  or  by 
the  benignity  of  nature.  If  any  future  Shakspeare 
were  likely  to  arise,  it  might  be  a  problem  of  great 
interest  to  agitate,  whether  the  condition  of  a  poor  man 
or  of  a  gentleman  were  best  fitted  to  nurse  and  stimu- 
late his  faculties.  But  for  the  actual  Shakspeare,  since 
what  he  was  he  was,  and  since  nothing  greater  can  be 
imagined,  it  is  now  become  a  matter  of  little  moment 
whether  his  course  lay  for  fifteen  or  twenty  years 
through  the  humilities  of  absolute  poverty,  or  through 
the  chequered  paths  of  gentry  lying  in  the  shade. 
Whatever  was,  must,  in  this  case  at  least,  have  been 
the  best,  since  it  terminated  in"  producing  Shakspeare  ; 
and  thus  far  we  must  all  be  optimists. 

Yet  still,  it  will  be  urged,  the  curiosity  is  not  illib- 
eral which  would  seek  to  ascertain  the  precise  career 


42  SHAKSPEARE. 

through  which  Shakspeare  ran.  This  we  readily  con- 
cede ;  and  we  are  anxious  ourselves  to  contribute  any^ 
thing  in  our  power  to  the  settlement  of  a  point  so 
obscure.  What  we  have  wished  to  protest  against,  is 
the  spirit  of  partisanship  in  which  this  question  has  too 
generally  been  discussed.  For,  whilst  some  with  a 
foolish  affectation  of  plebeian  sympathies  overwhelm  us 
with  the  insipid  commonplaces  about  birth  and  ancient 
descent,  as  honors  containing  nothing  meritorious,  and 
rush  eagerly  into  an  ostentatious  exhibition  of  all  the 
circumstances  which  favor  the  notion  of  a  humble 
station  and  humble  connections  ;  others,  with  equal  for- 
getfulness  of  true  dignity,  plead  with  the  intemperance 
and  partiality  of  a  legal  advocate  for  the  pretensions 
of  Shakspeare  to  the  hereditary  rank  of  gentleman. 
Both  parties  violate  the  majesty  of  the  subject.  When 
we  are  seeking  for  the  sources  of  the  Euphrates  or  the 
St.  Lawrence,  we  look  for  no  proportions  to  the  mighty 
volume  of  waters  in  that  particular  summit  amongst 
the  chain  of  mountains  which  embosoms  its  earliest 
fountains,  nor  are  we  shocked  at  the  obscurity  of  these 
fountains.  Pursuing  the  career  of  Mahommed,  or  of 
any  man  who  has  memorably  impressed  his  own  mind 
or  agency  upon  the  revolutions  of  mankind,  we  feel 
solicitude  about  the  circumstances  which  might  sur- 
round his  cradle  to  be  altogether  unseasonable  and 
impertinent.  Whether  he  were  born  in  a  hovel  or  a 
palace,  whether  he  passed  his  infancy  in  squalid  pov- 
erty, or  hedged  around  by  the  glittering  spears  of  body- 
guards, as  mere  questions  of  fact  may  be  interesting  ; 
but,  in  the  light  of  either  accessories  or  counter-agen- 
cies to  the  native  majesty  of  the  subject,  are  trivial  and 


SHAKSPEARE. 


43 


below  all  philosophic  valuation.  So  with  regard  to  the 
creator  of  Lear  and  Hamlet,  of  Othello  and  Macbeth ; 
to  him  from  whose  golden  urns  the  nations  beyond  the 
far  Atlantic,  the  multitude  of  the  isles,  and  the  genera- 
tions unborn  in  Australian  climes,  even  to  the  realms  of 
the  rising  sun  (the  maroXai  IsXioio,)  must  in  every  age 
draw  perennial  streams  of  intellectual  life,  we  feel 
that  the  little  accidents  of  birth  and  social  condition 
are  so  unspeakably  below  the  grandeur  of  the  theme, 
are  so  irrelevant  and  disproportioned  to  the  real  interest 
at  issue,  so  incommensurable  with  any  of  its  relations, 
that  a  biographer  of '  Shakspeare  at  once  denounces 
himself  as  below  his  subject,  if  he  can  entertain  such  a 
question  as  seriously  affecting  the  glory  of  the  poet. 
In  some  legends  of  saints,  we  find  that  they  were  born 
with  a  lambent  circle  or  golden  aureola  about  their 
heads.  This  angelic  coronet  shed  light  alike  upon  the 
chambers  of  a  cottage  or  a  palace,  upon  the  gloomy 
limits  of  a  dungeon,  or  the  vast  expansion  of  a 
cathedral ;  but  the  cottage,  the  palace,  the  dungeon, 
the  cathedral,  were  all  equally  incapable  of  adding  one 
ray  of  color  or  one  pencil  of  light  to  the  supernatural 
halo. 

Having,  therefore,  thus  pointedly  guarded  ourselves 
from  misconstruction,  and  consenting  to  entertain  the 
question  as  one  in  which  we,  the  worshippers  of  Shak- 
speare, have  an  interest  of  curiosity,  but  in  which  he, 
the  object  of  our  worship,  has  no  interest  of  glory,  we 
proceed  to  state  what  appears  to  us  the  result  of  the 
scanty  facts  surviving  when  collated  with  each  other. 
^  By  his  mother's  side,  Shakspeare  was  an  authentic 
gentleman.     By  his  father's  he  would  have  stood  in  a 


44 


SHAKSPEAEE. 


more  dubious  position  :  but  the  effect  of  municipal 
honors 'to  raise  and  illustrate  an  equivocal  rank,  has 
always  been  acknowledged  under  the  popular  tenden- 
cies of  our  English  political  system.  From  the  sort  of 
lead,  therefore,  which  John  Shakspeare  took  at  one 
time  amongst  his  fellow-townsmen,  and  from  his  rank 
of  first  magistrate,  we  may  presume  that,  about  the 
^year  1568,  he  had  placed  himself  at  the  head  of  the 
"TStratford  community.  Afterwards  he  continued  for 
some  years  to  descend  from  this  altitude  ;  and  the 
question  is,  at  what  point  this  gradual  degradation  may 
be  supposed  to  have  settled.  Now  we  shall  avow  it  as 
our  opinion,  that  the  composition  of  society  in  Stratford 
was  such  that,  even  had  the  Shakspeare  family  main- 
tained their  superiority,  the  main  body  of  their  daily 
associates  must  still  have  been  found  amongst  persons 
below  the  rank  of  gentry.  The  poet  must  inevitably 
have  mixed  chiefly  with  mechanics  and  humble  trades- 
men, for  such  people  composed  perhaps  the  total  com- 
munity. But  had  there  even  been  a  gentry  in  Strat- 
ford, since  they  would  have  marked  the  distinctions  of 
their  rank  chiefly  by  greater  reserve  of  manners,  it  is 
probable  that,  after  all,  Shakspeare,  with  his  enormity 
of  delight  in  exhibitions  of  human  nature,  would  have 
mostly  cultivated  that  class  of  society  in  which  the 
'  feelings  are  more  elementary  and  simple,  in  which 
the  thoughts  speak  a  plainer  language,  and  in  which 
the  restraints  of  factitious  or  conventional  decorum  are 
exchanged  for  the  restraints  of  mere  sexual  decency. 
It  is  a  noticeable  fact  to  all  who  have  looked  upon  human 
life  with  an  eye  of  strict  attention,  that  the  abstract  im- 
age of  womanhood,  in  its  loveliness,  its  delicacy,  and  its 


"  >  f 

J^     ^  y  SHAKSPEARE.  45 

j  modesty,  nowhere  makes  itself  more  impressive  or 
more  advantageously  felt  than  in  the  humblest  cot- 
tages, because  it  is  there  brought  into  immediate  juxta- 
position with  the  grossness  of  manners,  and  the  careless 
license  of  language  incident  to  the  fathers  and  brothers 
of  the  house.  And  this  is  more  especially  true  in  a 
nation  of  unaffected  sexual  ga]lantry,i^  such  as  the 
English  and  the  Gothic  races  in  general ;  since,  under 
the  immunity  which  their  women  enjoy  from  all  servile 
labors  of  a  coarse  or  out-of-doors  order,  by  as  much 
lower  as  they  descend  in  the  scale  of  rank,  by  so  much 
more  do  they  benefit  under  the  force  of  contrast  with 
the  men  of  their  own  level.  A  young  man  of  that  class, 
however  noble  in  appearance,  is  somewhat  degraded 
in  the  eyes  of  women,  by  the  necessity  which  his  indi- 
gence imposes  of  working  under  a  master ;  but  a  beau- 
tiful young  woman,  in  the  very  poorest  family,  unless 
she  enters  upon  a  life  of  domestic  servitude,  (in  which 
case  her  labors  are  light,  suited  to  her  sex,  and  with- 
drawn from  the  public  eye,)  so  long  in  fact  as  she  stays 
under  her  father's  roof,  is  as  perfectly  her  own  mistress 
and  sui  juris  as  the  daughter  of  an  earl.  This  personal 
dignity,  brought  into  stronger  relief  by  the  mercenary 
employments  of  her  male  connections,  and  the  femi- 
nine gentleness  of  her  voice  and  manners,  exhibited 
under  the  same  advantages  of  contrast,  oftentimes  com- 
bine to  make  a  young  cottage  beauty  as  fascinating  an 
object  as  any  woman  of  any  station. 

Hence  we  may  in  part  account  for  the  great  event  of 
Shakspeare's  early  manhood,  his  premature  marriage. 
It  has  always  been  known,  or  at  Jeast  traditionally 
received  for  a  fact,  that  Shakspeare  had  married  whilst 


/' 


46  SHAKSPEARE. 

yet  a  boy,  and  that  his  wife  was  unaccountably  older 
than  himself.  In  the  very  earliest  biographical  sketch 
of  the  poet,  compiled  by  Rowe,  from  materials  col- 
lected by  Betterton,  the  actor,  it  was  stated,  (and  that 
statement  is  now  ascertained  to  have  been  correct,) 
that  he  had  married  Anne  Hathaway,  *  the  daughter  of 
'a  substantial  yeoman.'  Further  than  this  nothing  was 
known.  But  in  September,  1836,  was  published  a 
very  remarkable  document,  which  gives  the  assurance 
of  law  to  the  time  and  fact  of  this  event,  yet  still, 
unless  collated  with  another  record,  does  nothing  to 
lessen  the  mystery  which  had  previously  surrounded  its 
circumstances.  This  document  consists  of  two  parts ; 
the  first,  and  principal,  according  to  the  logic  of  the 
case,  though  second  according  to  the  arrangement, 
being  a  license  for  the  marriage  of  William  Shakspeare 
with  Anne  Hathaway,  under  the  condition  '  of  once 
asking  of  the  bannes  of  matrimony,'  that  is,  in  effect, 
dispensing  with  two  out  of  the  three  customary  ask- 
ings; the  second  or  subordinate  part  of  the  document 
being  a  bond  entered  into  by  two  sureties,  viz. :  Fulke 
Sandells  and  John  Rychardson,  both  described  as 
agricolcR  or  yeomen,  and  both  marksmen,  (that  is, 
incapable  of  writing,  and  therefore  subscribing  by 
means  of  marks,)  for  the  payment  of  forty  pounds 
sterling,  in  the  event  of  Shakspeare,  yet  a  minor,  and 
incapable  of  binding  himself,  failing  to  fulfil  the  condi- 
tions of  the  license.  In  the  bond,  drawn  up  in  Latin, 
there  is  no  mention  of  Shakspeare's  name  ;  but  in  the 
license,  which  is  altogether  English,  his  name,  of 
course,  stands  foremost;  and,  as  it  may  gratify  the 
reader  to  see  the  very  words  and  orthography  of  the 


SHAKSPEARE. 

original,  we  here  extract  the  operative  part  of  this 
document,  prefacing  only,  that  the  license  is  attached 
by  way  of  explanation  to  the  bond.  '  The  condition 
of  this  obligation  is  suche,  that  if  hereafter  there  shall 
not  appere  any  lawfuU  lett  or  impediment,  by  reason  of 
any  precontract,  &c.,  but  that  Willm.  Shagspere,  one 
thone  ptie,'  [on  the  one  party,]  'and  Anne  Hathwey 
of  Stratford,  in  the  diocess  of  Worcester,  maiden,  may 
lawfully  solemnize  matrimony  together;  and  in  the 
same  afterwards  remaine  and  continew  like  man  and 
wiffe.  And,  moreover,  if  the  said  Willm.  Shagspere 
do  not  proceed  to  solemnization  of  mariadg  with  the 
said  Anne  Hathwey,  without  the  consent  of  hir  frinds ; 
—  then  the  said  obligation'  [viz.,  to  pay  forty  pounds] 
'  to  be  voyd  and  of  none  effect,  or  els  to  stand  &  abide 
in  full  force  and  vertue.' 

What  are  we  to  think  of  this  document  ?  Trepida- 
tion and  anxiety  are  written  upon  its  face.  The 
parties  are  not  to  be  married  by  a  special  license  ;  not 
even  by  an  ordinary  license;  in  that  case  no  proclama- 
tion of  banns,  no  public  asking  at  all,  would  have  been 
requisite.  Economical  scruples  are  consulted  ;  and 
yet  the  regular  movement  of  the  marriage  '  through 
the  bell-ropes'^^  is  disturbed.  Economy,  which  re- 
tards the  marriage,  is  here  evidently  in  collision  with 
some  opposite  principle  which  precipitates  it.  How  is 
all  this  to  be  explained  ?  Much  light  is  afforded  by  the 
date  when  illustrated  by  another  document.  The  bond 
bears  date  on  the  28th  day  of  November,  in  the  25th 
year  of  our  lady  the  queen,  that  is,  in  1582.  Now 
the  baptism  of  Shakspeare's  eldest  child,  Susanna,  is 
registered  on  the  26th  of  May  in  the  year  following. 


48  SHAKSPEARE. 

Suppose,  therefore,  that  his  marriage  was  solemnized 
on  the  1st  day  of  December ;  it  was  barely  possible 
that  it  could  be  earlier,  considering  that  the  sureties, 
drinking,  perhaps,  at  Worcester  throughout  the  28th  of 
November,  would  require  the  29th,  in  so  dreary  a 
season,  for  their  return  to  Stratford ;  after  which  some 
preparation  might  be  requisite  to  the  bride,  since  the 
marriage  was  not  celebrated  at  Stratford.  Next  sup- 
pose the  birth  of  Miss  Susanna  to  have  occurred,  like 
her  father's,  two  days  before  her  baptism,  viz.,  on  the 
24th  of  May.  From  December  the  1st  to  May  the 
24th,  both  days  inclusively,  are  one  hundred  and 
seventy-five  days ;  which,  divided  by  seven,  gives 
precisely  twenty-five  weeks,  that  is  to  say,  six  months 
short  by  one  week.  Oh,  fie.  Miss  Susanna,  you  came 
rather  before  you  were  wanted. 

Mr.  Campbell's  comment  upon  the  aflxiir  is,  that  '  if 
this  was  the  case,'  viz.,  if  the  baptism  were  really 
solemnized  on  the  26th  of  May,  '  the  poet's  first  child 
would  appear  to  have  been  born  only  six  months  and 
eleven  days  after  the  bond  was  entered  into.'  And 
he  then  concludes  that,  on  this  assumption,  '  Miss 
Susanna  Shakspeare  came  into  the  world  a  little  pre- 
maturely.' But  this  is  to  doubt  where  there  never  was 
any  ground  for  doubting ;  the  baptism  was  certainly  on 
the  26th  of  May;  and,  in  the  next  place,  the  calcula- 
tion of  six  months  and  eleven  days  is  sustained  by 
substituting  lunar  months  for  calendar,  and  then  only 
by  supposing  the  marriage  to  have  been  celebrated  on 
the  very  day  of  subscribing  the  bond  in  Worcester,  and 
the  baptism  to  have  been  coincident  with  the  birth  ;  of 
which  suppositions  the   latter  is  improbable,  and  the 


SHAKSFEARE.  49 

former,  considering  the  situation  of  Worcester,  impos- 
sible. 

Strange  it  is,  that,  whilst  all  biographers  have 
worked  with  so  much  zeal  upon  the  most  barren  dates 
or  most  baseless  traditions  in  the  great  poet's  life, 
realizing  in  a  manner  the  chimeras  of  Laputa,  and 
endeavoring  '  to  extract  sunbeams  from  cucumbers,' 
such  a  story  with  regard  to  such  an  event,  no  fiction  of 
village  scandal,  but  involved  in  legal  documents,  a 
story  so  significant  and  so  eloquent  to  the  intelligent, 
should  formerly  have  been  dismissed  without  notice  of 
any  kind,  and  even  now,  after  the  discovery  of  1836, 
with  nothing  beyond  a  slight  conjectural  insinuation. 
For  our  parts,  we  should  have  been  the  last  amongst 
the  biographers  to  unearth  any  forgotten  scandal,  or, 
after  so  vast  a  lapse  of  time,  and  when  the  grave  had 
shut  out  all  but  charitable  thoughts,  to  point  any  moral 
censures  at  a  simple  case  of  natural  fraility,  youthful 
precipitancy  of  passion,  of  all  trespasses  the  most 
venial,  where  the  final  intentions  are  honorable.  But 
in  this  case  there  seems  to  have  been'  something  more 
in  motion  than  passion  or  the  ardor  of  youth.  '  I  like 
not,'  says  Parson  Evans,  (alluding  to  Falstaff  in  mas- 
querade,) 'I  like  fnot  when  a  woman  has  a  great 
peard ;  I  spy  a  great  peard  under  her  muffler.' 
Neither  do  we  like  the  spectacle  of  a  mature  young 
woman,  five  years  past  her  majority,  wearing  the 
semblance  of  having  been  led  astray  by  a  boy  who 
had  still  two  years  and  a  half  to  run  of  his  minority.! 
Shakspeare  himself,  looking  back  on  this  part  of  his  I 
youthful  history  froni  his  maturest  years,  breathes  forth  I 
pathetic  counsels  against  the  errors  into  which  his  own 
4 


50  SHAKSPEARE. 

inexperience  had  been  insnared.  The  disparity  of 
years  between  himself  and  his  wife  he  notices  in  a 
beautiful  scene  of  the  '^Velfth  Night.  The  Duke, 
Orsino,  observing  the  sensibiTil^which  the  pretended 
Cesario  had  betrayed  on  hearing  some  touching  old 
snatches  of  a  love  strain,  swears  that  his  beardless  page 
must  have  felt  the  passion  of  love,  which  the  other 
admits.     Upon  this  the  dialogue  proceeds  thus  : 

*  Duke.    What  kind  of  woman  is't  ? 

Viola.  Of  your  complexion. 

Duke.    She  is  not  worth  thee  then.    What  years  7 

Viola.  V  faith, 

About  your  years,  my  lord. 

Duke.    Too  old,  by  heaven.     Let  still  the  woman  take 
An  elder  than  heTself :  so  wears  she  to  him, 
So  sways  she  level  in  her  husband's  heart. 
For,  boy,  however  we  do  praise  ourselves, 
Our  fancies  are  more  giddy  and  unfirm, 
More  longing,  wavering,  sooner  lost  and  won. 
Than  women's  are. 

Viola.  I  think  it  well,  my  lord. 

Duke.      Then  let  thy  love  be  younger  than  thyself, 
Or  thy  affection  cannot  hold  the  bent  ; 
For  women  are  as  roses,  whose  fair  flower, 
Being  once  display'd,  doth  fall  that  very  hour.' 

These  counsels,  were  uttered  nearly  twenty  years 
after  the  event  in  his  own  life,  to  which  they  probably 
look  back ;  for  this  play  is  supposed  to  have  been 
written  in  Shakspeare's  thirty-eighth  year.  And  we 
may  read  an  earnestness  in  pressing  the  point  as  to 
the  inverted  disparity  of  years,  which  indicates  pretty 
clearly  an  appeal  to  the  lessons  of  his  personal  experi- 
ence. But  his  other  indiscretion,  in  having  yielded  so 
far  to  passion  and  opportunity  as  to  crop  by  prelibation, 
and  before  they  were  hallowed,  those  flowers  of  para- 


SHAKSPEARE.  51 

dise  which  belonged  to  his  marriage  day ;  this  he 
adverts  to  with  even  more  solemnity  of  sorrow,  and 
with  more  pointed  energy  of  moral  reproof,  in  the  very 
last  drama  which  is  supposed  to  have  proceeded  from 
his  pen,  and  therefore  with  the  force  and  sanctity  of 
testamentary  counsel.  The  Tempest  is  all  but  ascer- 
tained to  have  been  composed  in  1611,  that  is,  about 
five  years  before  the  poet's  death  ;  and  indeed  could 
not  have  been  composed  much  earlier ;  for  the  very 
incident  which  suggested  the  basis  of  the  plot,  and  of 
the  local  scene,  viz.,  the  shipwreck  of  Sir  George 
Somers  on  the  Bermudas,  (which  were  in  consequence 
denominated  the  Somers'  Islands,)  did  not  occur  until 
the  year  1609.  In  the  opening  of  the  fourth  act, 
Prospero  formally  betrothes  his  daughter  to  Ferdinand ; 
and  in  doing  so  he  pays  the  prince  a  well-merited 
compliment  of  having  '  worthily  purchas'd '  this  rich 
jewel,  by  the  patience  with  which,  for  her  sake,  he  had 
supported  harsh  usage,  and  other  painful  circumstances 
of  his  trial.     But,  he  adds  solemnly, 

'  If  thou  dost  break  her  virgin  knot  before 
All  sanctimonious  ceremonies  may 
With  full  and  holy  rite  be  ministered  ; ' 

in  that  case  what  would  follow  ? 

*  No  sweet  aspersion  shall  the  heavens  let  fall, 
To  make  this  contract  grow  ;  but  barren  hate, 
Sour-ey'd  disdain  and  discord,  shall  bestreio 
The  union  of  your  bed  with  weeds  so  loathly 
That  you  shall  hate  it  both.     Therefore  take  heed, 
As  Hymen's  lamps  shalllight  you.' 

The  young   prince  assures   him   in  reply,  that  no 


&Z  SHAKSPEARE. 

Strength  of  opportunity,  concurring  with  the  uttermost 

temptation,  not 

*  the  murkiest  den, 
The  most  opportune  place,  the  strong'st  suggestion 
Our  worser  genius  can ,' 

should  ever  prevail  to  lay  asleep  his  jealousy  of  self- 
control,  so  as  to  take  any  advantage  of  Miranda's 
innocence.  And  he  adds  an  argument  for  this  absti- 
nence, by  way  of  reminding  Prospero,  that  not  honor 
only,  but  even  prudential  care  of  his  own  happiness,  is 
interested  in  the  observance  of  his  promise.  Any 
unhallowed  anticipation  would,  as  he  insinuates, 

'  take  away 
The  edge  of  that  day's  celebration. 
When  I  shall  think,  or  Phosbus'  steeds  are  founder'd. 
Or  night  kept  chain'd  below ; ' 

that  is,  when  even  the  winged  hours  would  seem  to 
move  too  slowly.  Even  thus  Prospero  is  not  quite 
satisfied.  During  his  subsequent  dialogue  with  Ariel, 
we  are  to  suppose  that  Ferdinand,  in  conversing  apart 
with  Miranda,  betrays  more  impassioned  ardor  than 
the  wise  magician  altogether  approves.  The  prince's 
caresses  have  not  been  unobserved  ;  and  thus  Prospero 
renews  his  warning : 

•  Look  thou  be  true  :  do  not  give  dalliance 
Too  much  the  rein :   the  strongest  oaths  are  straw 
To  the  fire  i'  the  blood  :  be  more  abstemious. 
Or  else  —  good  night  your  vow.' 

The  royal  lover  reassures  him  of  his  loyalty  to  his 
engagements ;  and  again  the  wise  father,  so  honorably 
jealous  for  his  daughter,  professes  himself  satisfied 
with  the  prince's  pledges. 

Now  in  all  these   emphatic   warnings,  uttering  the 


SHAKSPEARE.  53 

(language  '  of  that  sad  wisdom  folly  leaves  behind,' 
Who  can  avoid  reading,  as  in  subtle  hieroglyphics,  the 
secret  record  of  Shakspeare's  own  nuptial  disappoint- 
ments ?  We,  indeed,  that  is,  universal  posterity 
through  every  age,  have  reason  to  rejoice  in  these  dis- 
appointments ;  for,  to  them,  past  all  doubt,  -we  are 
indebted  for  Shakspeare's  subsequent  migration  to 
London,  and  his  public  occupation,  which,  giving  him  a 
deep  pecuniary  interest  in  the  productions  of  his  pen, 
such  as  no  other  literary  application  of  his  powers 
could  have  approached  in  that  day,  were  eventually  the 
means  of  drawing  forth  those  divine  works  which  have 
survived  their  author  for  our  everlasting  benefit. 

Our  own  reading  and  deciphering  of  the  whole  case 
is  as  follows.  The  Shakspeares  were  a  handsome 
family,  both  father  and  sons.  This  we  assume  upon 
the  following  grounds :  First,  on  the  presumption 
arising  out  of  John  Shakspeare's  having  won  the  favor 
of  a  young  heiress  higher  in  rank  than  himself; 
secondly,  on  the  presumption  involved  in  the  fact  of 
three  amongst  his  four  sons,  having  gone  upon  the 
stage,  to  which  the  most  obvious  (and  perhaps  in  those 
days  a  sine  qua  non)  recommendation  would  be  a  good 
person  and  a  pleasing  countenance  ;  thirdly,  on  the 
direct  evidence  of  Aubrey,  who  assures  us  that  Wil- 
liam Shakspeare  was  a  handsome  and  a  well-shaped 
man ;  fourthly,  on  the  implicit  evidence  of  the  Strat- 
ford monument,  which  exhibits  a  man  of  good  figure 
and  noble  countenance ;  fifthly,  on  the  confirmation  of 
this  evidence  by  the  Chandos  portrait,  which  exhibits 
noble  features,  illustrated  by  the*  utmost  sweetness  o 
expression  ;  sixthly,  on  the  selection  of  theatrical  parts, 


V 


54  SHAKSPEAEE. 

which  it  is  known  that  Shakspeare  personated,  most  of 
them  being  such  as  required  some  dignity  of  form,  viz., 
kings,  the  athletic  (though  aged)  follower  of  an  ath- 
letic young  man,  and  supernatural  beings.  On  these 
grounds,  direct  or  circumstantial,  we  believe  ourselves 
warranted  in  assuming  that  William  Shakspeare  was  a 
handsome  and  even  noble  looking  boy.  Miss  Anne 
Hathaway  had  herself  probably  some  personal  attrac- 
tions ;  and,  if  an  indigent  girl,  who  looked  for  no 
pecuniary  advantages,  would  probably  have  been  early 
sought  in  marriage.  But  as  the  daughter  of  '  a  sub- 
stantial yeoman,'  who  would  expect  some  fortune  in 
his  daughter's  suitors,  she  had,  to  speak  coarsely,  a 
little  outlived  her  market.  Time  she  had  none  to  lose. 
William  Shakspeare  pleased  her  eye ;  and  the  gentle- 
ness of  his  nature  made  him  an  apt  subject  for  female 
blandishments,  possibly  for  female  arts.  Without 
imputing,  however,  to  this  Anne  Hathaway  any  thing 
so  baleful  as  a  settled  plot  for  insnaring  him,  it  was 
easy  enough  for  a  mature  woman,  armed  with  such 
inevitable  advantages  of  experience  ai^  of  self-posses- 
sion, to  draw  onward  a  blushing  novice  ;  and,  without 
directly  creating  opportunities,  to  place  him  in  the  way 
of  turning  to  account  such  as  naturally  offered.  Young 
boys  are  generally  flattered  by  the  condescending 
notice  of  grown-up-women ;  and  perhaps  Shakspeare's 
own  lines  upon  a  similar  situation,  to  a  young  boy 
adorned  with  the  same  natural  gifts  as  himself,  may 
give  us  the  key  to  the  result : 

'  Gentle  ihou  art,  and  therefore  to  be  won  ; 
Beauteous  thou  art,  therefore  to  be  assail'd  ; 
And,  when  a  woman  woos,  what  woman's  son 
Will  sourly  leave  her  till  he  have  prevail'd  ? ' 


SHAKSPEARE.  55 

Once,  indeed,  entangled  in  such  a  pursuit,  any  person 
of  manly  feeling  would  be  sensible  that  he  had  no 
retreat ;  that  would  be —  to  insult  a  woman,  grievously 
to  wound  her  sexual  pride,  and  to  insure  her  lasting 
scorn  and  hatred.  These  were  consequences  which 
the  gentle-minded  Shakspeare  could  not  face.  He 
pursued  his  gcJod  fortunes,  half  perhaps  in  heedless- 
ness, half  in  desperation,  until  he  was  roused  by  the 
clamorous  displeasure  of  her  family  upon  first  discover- 
ing the  situation  of  their  kinswoman.  For  such  a 
situation  there  could  be  but  one  atonement,  and  that 
was  hurried  forward  by  both  parties :  whilst,  out  of 
delicacy  towards  the  bride  the  wedding  was  not  cele- 
brated in  Stratford,  (where  the  register  contains  no 
notice  of  such  an  event) ;  nor,  as  Malone  imagined,  in 
Weston-upon-Avon,  that  being  in  the  diocese  of  Glou- 
cester ;  but  in  some  parish,  as  yet  undiscovered,  in  the 
diocese  of  Worcester. 

But  now  arose  a  serious  question  as  to  the  future 
maintenance  of  the  young  people.  John  Shakspeare 
was  depressed  in  his  circumstances,  and  he  had  other 
children  besides  William,  viz.,  three  sons  and  a  daugh- 1 
ter.  The  elder  lives  have  represented  him  as  burdened  \ 
with  ten  ;  but  this  was  an  error,  arising  out  of  the  con- 
fusion between  John  Shakspeare  the  glover,  and  John 
Shakspeare  a  shoemaker.  This  error  has  been  thus 
far  of  use,  that,  by  exposing  the  fact  of  two  John 
Shakspeares  (not  kinsmen)  residing  in  Stratford-upon- 
Avon,  it  has  satisfactorily  proved  the  name  to  be 
amongst  those  which  are  locally  indigenous  to  War- 
wickshire. Meantime  it  is  now  ascertained  that  John 
Shakspeare  the  glover  had  only  eight  children,  viz., 


56  .  SHAKSPEARE. 

four  daughters  and  four  sons.  The  order  of  their 
succession  was  this:  Joan,  Margaret,  William,  Gilbert, 
a  second  Joan,  Anne,  Richard,  and  Edmund.  Three 
of  the  daughters,  viz.,  the  two  eldest  of  the  family, 
Joan  and  Margaret,  together  with  Anne,  died  in  child- 
hood. All  the  rest  attained  mature  ages,  and  of  these 
William  was  the  eldest.  This  might  give  him  some 
advantage  in  his  father's  regard  ;  but  in  a  question  of 
pecuniary  provision,  precedency  amongst  the  children 
of  an  insolvent  is  nearly  nominal.  For  the  present 
John  Shakspeare  could  do  little  for  his  son  ;  and,  under 
these  circumstances,  perhaps  the  father  of  Anne  Hath- 
away would  come  forward  to  assist  the  new-married 
couple.  This  condition  of  dependency  would  furnish 
matter  for  painful  feelings  and  irritating  words.  The 
youthful  husband,  whose  mind  would  be  expanding  as 
rapidly  as  the  leaves  and  blossoms  of  spring-time  in 
polar  latitudes,  would  soon  come  to  appreciate  the  sort 
of  wiles  by  which  he  had.  been  caught.  The  female 
mind  is  quick,  and  almost  gifted  with  the  power  of 
witchcraft,  to  decipher  what  is  passing  in  the  thoughts 
of  familiar  companions.  Silent  and  forbearing  as  Wil- 
liam Shakspeare  might  be,  Anne,  his  staid  wife,  would 
read  his  secret  reproaches ;  ill  would  she  dissemble 
her  wrath,  and  the  less  so  from  the  consciousness  of 
having  deserved  them.  It  is  no  uncommon  case  for 
women  to  feel  anger  in  connection  with  one  subject, 
and  to  express  it  in  connection  with  another ;  which 
other,  perhaps,  (except  as  a  serviceable  mask,)  would 
have  been  a  matter  of  indifference  to  their  feelings. 
Anne  would,  therefore,  reply  to  those  inevitable  re- 
proaches which  her  own  sense  must  presume  to  be 


SHAKSPEARE.  57 

lurking  in  her  husband's  heart,  by  others  equally- 
stinging,  on  his  inability  to  support  his  family,  and  on 
his  obligations  to  her  father's  purse.  Shakspeare,  we 
may  be  sure,  would  be  ruminating  every  hour  on  the 
means  of  his  deliverance  from  so  painful  a  depen- 
dency; and  at  length,  after  four  years'  conjugal  dis- 
cord, he  would  resolve  upon  that  plan  of  solitary 
emigration  to  the  metropolis,  which,  at  the  same  time 
that  it  released  him  from  the  humiliation  of  domestic 
feuds,  succeeded  so  splendidly  for  his  worldly  pros- 
perity, and  with  a  train  of  consequences  so  vast  for  all 
future  ages. 

Such,  we  are  persuaded,  was  the  real  course  of 
Shakspeare's  transition  from  school-boy  pursuits  to  his 
public  career.  And  upon  the  known  temperament  of 
Shakspeare,  his  genial  disposition  to  enjoy  life  without 
disturbing  his  enjoyment  by  fretting  anxieties,  we  build 
the  conclusion,  that  had  his  friends  furnished  him  with 
ampler  funds,  and  had  his  marriage  been  well  assorted 
or  happy,  we  —  the  world  of  posterity  —  should  have 
lost  the  whole  benefit  and  delight  which  we  have  since 
reaped  from  his  matchless  faculties.  The  motives 
which  drove  him /row  Stratford  are  clear  enough  ;  but 
what  motives  determined  his  course  to  London,  and 
especially  to  the  stage,  still  remains  to  be  explained. 
Stratford-upon-Avon,  lying  in  the  high  road  from  Lon- 
don through  Oxford  to  Birmingham,  (or  more  generally 
to  the  north,)  had  been  continually  visited  by  some  of 
the  best  comedians  during  Shakspeare's  childhood. 
One  or  two  of  the  most  respectable  metropolitan  actors 
were  natives  of  Stratford.  These  would  be  well 
known  to  the  elder  Shakspeare.     But,  apart  from  that 


58  SHAKSPEARE. 

accident,  it  is  notorious  that  mere  legal  necessity  and 
usage  would  compel  all  companies  of  actors,  upon 
coming  into  any  town,  to  seek,  in  the  first  place,  from 
the  chief  magistrate,  a  license  for  opening  a  theatre, 
and  next,  over  and  above  this  public  sanction,  to  seek 
his  personal  favor  and  patronage.  As  an  alderman, 
therefore,  but  still  more  whilst  clothed  with  the  official 
powers  of  chief  magistrate,  the  poet's  father  would 
have  opportunities  of  doing  essential  services  to  many 
persons  connected  with  the  London  stage.  The  con- 
versation of  comedians  acquainted  with  books,  fresh 
from  the  keen  and  sparkling  circles  of  the  metropolis, 
and  filled  with  racy  anecdotes  of  the  court,  as  well  as 
of  public  life  generally,  could  not  but  have  been  fasci- 
nating, by  comparison  with  the  stagnant  society  of 
Stratford.  Hospitalities  on  a  liberal  scale  would  be 
offered  to  these  men.  Not  impossibly  this  fact  might 
be  one  principal  key  to  those  dilapidations  which  the 
family  estate  had  suffered.  These  actors,  on  their 
part,  would  retain  a  grateful  sense  of  the  kindness  they 
had  received,  and  would  seek  to  repay  it  to  John  Shak- 
speare,  now  that  he  was  depressed  in  his  fortunes,  as 
opportunities  might  offer.  His  eldest  son,  growing  up 
a  handsome  young  man,  and  beyond  all  doubt  from  his 
earliest  days  of  most  splendid  colloquial  powers,  (for 
assuredly  of  him  it  may  be  taken  for  granted, 

'  Nee  licuit  populis  parvum  te,  Nile,  videre,') 

would  be  often  reproached  in  a  friendly  way  for  burying 
himself  in  a  country  life.  These  overtures,  prompted 
alike  by  gratitude  to  the  father,  and  a  real  selfish  inter- 
est in  the  talents  of  the  son,  would  at  length  take  a 


SHAKSPEAEE.  59 

definite  shape  ;  and  upon  some  clear  understanding  as 
to  the  terms  of  such  an  arrangement,  William  Shak- 
speare  would  at  length,  (about  1586,  according  to  the 
received  account,  that  is,  in  the  fifth  year  of  his  mar- 
ried life,  and  the  twenty -third  or  twenty-fourth  of  his 
age,)  unaccompanied  by  wife  or  children,  translate 
himself  to  London.  Later  than  1586  it  could  not  well 
be,  for  already  in  1589  it  has  been  recently  ascer- 
tained that  he  held  a  share  in  the  property  of  a  leading 
theatre. 

We  must  here  stop  to  notice,  and  the  reader  will 
allow  us  to  notice  with  summary  indignation,  ,the 
slanderous  and  idle  tale  which  represents  Shakspeare 
as  having  fled  to  London  in  the  character  of  a  criminal, 
from  the  persecutions  of  Sir  Thomas  Lucy  of  Charle- 
cot.  This  tale  has  long  been  propagated  under  two 
separate  impulses.  Chiefly,  perhaps,  under  the  vulgar 
love  of  pointed  and  glaring  contrasts ;  the  splendor  of 
the  man  was  in  this  instance  brought  into  a  sort  of 
epigrammatic  antithesis  with  the  humility  of  his  for- 
tunes ;  secondly,  under  a  baser  impulse,  the  malicious 
pleasure  of  seeing  a  great  man  degraded.  Accord- 
ingly, as  in  the  case  of  Milton,  ^^  it  has  been  affirmed 
that  Shakspeare  had  suffered  corporal  chastisement,  in 
fact,  (we  abhor  to  utter  such  words,)  that  he  had  been 
judicially  whipt.  Now,  first  of  all,  let  us  mark  the 
inconsistency  of  this  tale.  The  poet  was  whipped, 
that  is,  he  was  punished  most  disproportionately,  and. 
yet  he  fled  to  avoid  punishment.  Next,  we  are  in^  \ 
formed  that  his  offence  was  deer-stealing,  and  from  the  | 
park  of  Sir  Thomas  Lucy.  And  it  has  been  well 
ascertained  that  Sir  Thomas  had  no  deer,  and  had  no 


60  SHAKSPEARE. 

park.  Moreover,  deer-stealing  was  regarded  by  our 
ancestors  exactly  as  poaching  is  regarded  by  us.  Deer 
ran  wild  in  all  the  great  forests ;  and  no  offence  was 
looked  upon  as  so  venial,  none  so  compatible  with  a 
noble  Robin-Hood  style  of  character,  as  this  very 
trespass  upon  what  were  regarded  as  fercB  natures,  and 
not  at  all  as  domestic  property.  But  had  it  been  other- 
wise, a  trespass  was  not  punishable  with  whipping  ; 
nor  had  Sir  Thomas  Lucy  the  power  to  irritate  a  whole 
community,  like  Stratford-upon-Avon,  by  branding  with 
permanent  disgrace  a  young  man  so  closely  connected 
with  three  at  least  of  the  best  families  in  the  neighbor- 
hood. Besides,  had  Shakspeare  suffered  any  dishonor 
of  that  kind,  the  scandal  would  infallibly  have  pursued 
him  at  his  very  heels  to  London ;  and  in  that  case 
Greene,  who  has  left  on  record,  in  a  posthumous  work 
of  1592,  his  malicious  feelings  towards  Shakspeare, 
could  not  have  failed  to  notice  it.  For,  be  it  remem- 
bered, that  a  judicial  flagellation  contains  a  twofold 
ignominy.  Flagellation  is  ignominious  in  its  own 
nature,  even  though  unjustly  inflicted,  and  by  a  ruffian  ; 
secondly,  any  judicial  punishment  is  ignominous,  even 
though  not  wearing  a  shade  of  personal  degradation. 
Now  a  judicial  flagellation  includes  both  features 
of  dishonor.  And  is  it  to  be  imagined  that  an  enemy, 
searching  with  the  diligence  of  malice  for  matter 
against  Shakspeare,  should  have  failed,  six  years  after 
the  event,  to  hear  of  that  very  memorable  disgrace 
which  had  exiled  him  from  Stratford,  and  was  the  very 
occasion  of  his  first  resorting  to  London  ;  or  that  a 
leading  company  of  players  in  the  metropolis,  one  of 
whom,  and  a  chief  one,  was  his  own  townsman,  should 


cheerfully   adopt   into   their   society, 

partner,  a  young  man  yet  flagrant  from  the  lash  of  the 

executioner  or  the  beadle  ? 

This  tale  is  fabulous,  and  rotten  to  its  core ;  yet 
even  this  does  less  dishonor  to  Shakspeare's  memory 
than  the  sequel  attached  to  it.  A  sort  of  scurrilous 
rondeau,  consisting  of  nine  lines,  so  loathsome  in  its 
brutal  stupidity,  and  so  vulgar  in  its  expression,  that 
we  shall  not  pollute  our  pages  by  transcribing  it,  has 
been  imputed  to  Shakspeare  ever  since  the  days  of  the 
credulous  Rowe.  The  total  point  of  this  idiot's  drivel 
consists  in  calling  Sir  Thomas  '  an  asse  ; '  and  well  it 
justifies  the  poet's  own  remark,  '  Let  there  be  gall 
enough  in  thy  ink,  no  matter  though  thou  write  with  a 
goose-pen.'  Our  own  belief  is,  that  these  lines  were 
a  production  of  Charles  II.'s  reign,  and  applied  to  a 
Sir  Thomas  Lucy,  not  very  far  removed,  if  at  all,  from 
the  age  of  him  who  first  picked  up  the  precious  filth. 
The  phrase  '  parliament  menriber^  we  believe  to  be 
quite  unknown  in  the  colloquial  use  of  Queen  Eliza- 
beth's reign. 

But,  that  we  may  rid  ourselves  once  and  for  ever  of 
this  outrageous  calumny  upon  Shakspeare's  memory, 
we  shall  pursue  the  story  to  its  final  stage.  Even 
Malone  has  been  thoughtless  enough  to  accredit  this 
closing  chapter,  which  contains,  in  fact,  such  a  super- 
fetation  of  folly  &s  the  annals-of  human  dulness  do  not 
exceed.  Let  us  recapitulate  the  points  of  the  story. 
A  baronet,  who  has  no  deer  and  no  park,  is  supposed 
to  persecute  a  poet  for  stealing  these  aerial  deer  out  of 
this  aerial  park,  both  lying  in  nephelococcygia.  The 
poet  sleeps  upon  this  wrong  for  eighteen  years ;  but  at 


62  SHAKSPEARE. 

length,  hearing  that  his  persecutor  is  dead  and  buried, 
he  conceives  bloody  thoughts  of  revenge.  And  this 
revenge  he  purposes  to  execute  by  picking  a  hole  in 
his  dead  enemy's  coat-of-arms.  Is  this  coat-of-arms, 
then,  Sir  Thomas  Lucy's  ?  Why,  no ;  Malone  admits 
that  it  is  not.  For  the  poet,  suddenly  recollecting  that 
this  ridicule  would  settle  upon  the  son  of  his  enemy, 
selects  another  coat-of-arms,  with  which  his  dead 
enemy  never  had  any  connection,  and  he  spends  his 
thunder  and  lightning  upon  this  irrevelant  object;  and, 
after  all,  the  ridicule  itself  lies  in  a  Welshman's  mis- 
pronouncing one  single  heraldic  term  —  a  Welshman 
who  mispronounces  all  words.  The  last  act  of  the 
poet's  malice  recalls  to  us  a  sort  of  jest-book  story  of 
an  Irishman,  the  Yulgarity  of  which  the  reader  will 
pardon  in  consideration  of  its  relevancy.  The  Irish- 
man having  lost  a  pair  of  silk  stockings,  mentions  to  a 
friend  that  he  has  taken  steps  for  recovering  them  by 
an  advertisement,  offering  a  reward  to  the  finder.  His 
friend  objects  that  the  costs  of  advertising,  and  the 
reward,  would  eat  out  the  full  value  of  the  silk  stock- 
ings. But  to  this  the  Irishman  replies,  with  a  knowing 
air,  that  he  is  not  so  green  as  to  have  overlooked  that ; 
and  that,  to  keep  down  the  reward,  he  had  advertised 
the  stockings  as  worsted.  Not  at  all  less  flagrant  is  the 
bull  ascribed  to  Shakspeare,  when  he  is  made  to  punish 
a  dead  man  by  personalities  meant  for  his  exclusive 
ear,  through  his  coat-of-arms,  but  at  the  same  time, 
with  the  express  purpose  of  blunting  and  defeating  the 
edge  of  his  own  scurrility,  is  made  to  substitute  for  the 
real  arms  some  others  which  had  no  more  relation  to 
the  dead  enemy  than  they  had  to  the  poet  himself. 


SHAKSPEARE.  63 

This  is  the  very  sublime  of  folly,  beyond  which  human 
dotage  cannot  advance. 

It  is  painful,  indeed,  and  dishonorable  to  human 
'nature,  that  whenever  men  of  vulgar  habits  and  of 
poor  education  wish  to  impress  us  with  a  feeling  of 
respect  for  a  man's  talent,  they  are  sure  to  cite,  by 
way  of  evidence,  some  gross  instance  of  malignity. 
Power,  in  their  minds,  is  best  illustrated  by  malice  or 
by  the  infliction  of  pain.  To  this  unwelcome  fact  we 
have  some  evidence  in  the  wretched  tale  which  we 
have  just  dismissed  ;  and  there  is  another  of  the  same 
description  to  be  found  in  all  lives  of  Shakpeare, 
which  we  will  expose  to  the  contempt  of  the  reader 
whilst  we  are  in  this  field  of  discussion,  that  we  may 
not  afterwards  have  to  resume  so   disgusting  a  subject. 

This  poet,  who  was  a  model  of  gracious  benignity  in 
his  manners,  and  of  whom,  amidst  our  general  igno- 
rance, thus  much  is  perfectly  established,  that  the  term 
gentle  was  almost  as  generally  and  by  prescriptive 
right  associated  with  his  name  as  the  affix  of  venerable 
with  Bede,  or  judicious  with  Hooker,  is  alleged  to  have 
insulted  a  friend  by  an  imaginary  epitaph  beginning 
'  Ten  in  the  Hundred,^  and  supposing  him  to  be 
damned,  yet  without  wit  enough  (which  surely  the 
Stratford  bellman  could  have  furnished)  for  devising 
any,  even  fanciful,  reason  for  such  a  supposition ;  upon 
which  the  comment  of  some  foolish  critic  is,  '  The 
sharpness  of  the  satire  is  said  to  have  stung  the  man 
so  much  that  he  never  forgave  it.'  We  have  heard  of 
the  sting  in  the  tail  atoning  for  the  brainless  head  ;  but 
in  this,  doggerel  the  tail  is  surely  as  sting] ess  as  the 
head  is  brainless.     For,  Ist,  Ten  in  the  hundred  could 


64  SHAKSPEARE. 

be  no  reproach  in  Shakspeare's  time,  any  more  than  to 
call  a  man  Tliree-and-a-half-per-cent.  in  this  present 
year,  1838 ;  except,  indeed,  amongst  those  foolish 
persons  who  built  their  morality  upon  the  Jewish  cere- 
monial law.  Shakspeare  himself  took  ten  per  cent. 
2dly.  It  happens  that  John  Combe,  so  far  from  being 
the  object  of  the  poet's  scurrility,  or  viewing  the  poet 
as  an  object  of  implacable  resentment,  was  a  Stratford 
friend ;  that  one  of  his  family  was  affectionately 
remembered  in  Shakspeare's  will  by  the  bequest  of 
his  sword ;  and  that  John  Combe  bimself  recorded  his 
perfect  charity  with  Shakspeare  by  leaving  him  a 
legacy  of  £b  sterling.  And  in  this  lies  the  key  to  the 
whole  story.  For,  ^dly^  The  four  lines  were  written 
and  printed  before  Shakspeare  was  born.  The  name 
Combe  is  a  common  one ;  and  some  stupid  fellow,  who 
had  seen  the  name  in  Shakspeare's  will,  and  happened 
also  to  have  seen  the  lines  in  a  collection  of  epigrams, 
chose  to  connect  the  cases  by  attributing  an  identity  to 
the  two  John  Combes,  though  at  war  with  chronology. 
Finally,  there  is  another  specimen  of  doggerel  attri- 
buted to  Shakspeare,  which  is  not  equally  unworthy 
of  him,  because  not  equally  malignant,  but  othei»vise 
equally  below  his  intellect,  no  less  than  his  scholarship  ; 
we  mean  the  inscription  on  his  grave-stone.  This,  as 
a  sort  of  sisie  viator  appeal  to  future  sextons,  is  worthy 
of  the  grave-digger  or  the  parish-clerk,  who  was  prob- 
ably its  author.  Or  it  may  have  been  an  antique 
formula,  like  the  vulgar  record  of  ownership  in 
books  — 

'  Anthony  Timothy  Dolthead's  book,  • 

God  give  him  grace  therein  to  look.' 


SHAKSPEARE.  65 

Thus  far  the  matter  is  of  little  importance ;  and  it 
might  have  been  supposed  that  malignity  itself  could 
hardly  have  imputed  such  trash  to  Shakspeare.  But 
when  we  find,  even  in  this  short  compass,  scarcely 
wider  than  the  posy  of  a  ring,  room  found  for  traduc- 
ing the  poet's  memory,  it  becomes  important  to  say, 
that  the  leading  sentiment,  the  horror  expressed  at  any 
disiturbance  offered  to  his  bones,  is  not  one  to  which 
Shakspeare  could  have  attached  the  slightest  weight ; 
far  less  could  have  outraged  the  sanctities  of  place  and 
subject,  by  affixing  to  any  sentiment  whatever  (and, 
according  to  the  fiction  of  the  case,  his  farewell  senti- 
ment) the  sanction  of  a  curse. 

Filial  veneration  and  piety  towards  the  memory  of 
this  great  man,  have  led  us  into  a  digression  that  might 
have  been  unseasonable  in  any  cause  less  weighty  than 
one,  having  for  its  object  to  deliver  his  honored  name 
from  a  load  of  the  most  brutal  malignity.  Never 
more,  we  hope  and  venture  to  believe,  will  any 
thoughtless  biographer  impute  to  Shakspeare  the  asi- 
nine doggerel  with  which  the  uncritical  blundering  of 
his  earliest  biographer  has  caused  his  name  to  be 
dishonored.  We  now  resume  the  thread  of  our  biog- 
raphy. The  stream  of  history  is  centuries  in  working 
itself  clear  of  any  calumny  with  which  it  has  once 
been  polluted. 

Most  readers  will  be  aware  of  an  old  story,  accord- 
ing to  which  Shakspeare  gained  his  livelihood  for  some 
time  after  coming  to  London  by  holding  the  horses  of 
those  who  rode  to  the  play.  This  legend  is  as  idle  as 
any  one  of  those  which  we  have  just  exposed.  No 
custom  ever  existed  of  riding  on  horseback  to  the  play. 
5 


66  SHAKSPEARE. 

Gentlemen,  who  rode  valuable  horses,  would  assuredly 
not  expose  them  systematically  to  the  injury  of  stand- 
ing exposed  to  cold  for  two  or  even  four  hours ;  and 
persons  of  inferior  rank  would  not  ride  on  horseback 
in  the  town.  Besides,  had  such  a  custom  ever  existed, 
stables  (or  sheds  at  least)  would  soon  have  arisen  to 
meet  the  public  wants;  and  in  some  of  the  dramatic 
5  sketches  of  the  day,  which  noticed  every  fashion  aft  it 
arose,  this  would  not  have  been  overlooked.  The 
story  is  traced  originally  to  Sir  William  Davenant. 
Betterton  the  actor,  who  professed  to  have  received  it 
from  him,  passed  it  onwards  to  Rowe,  he  to  Pope, 
Pope  to  Bishop  Newton,  the  editor  of  Milton,  and 
'  Newton  to  Dr.  Johnson.  This  pedigree  of  the  fable, 
however,  adds  nothing  to  its  credit,  and  multiplies  the 
chances  of  some  mistake.  Another  fable,  not  much 
less  absurd,  represents  Shakspeare  as  having  from  the 
very  first  been  borne  upon  the  establishment  of  the 
theatre,  and  so  far  contradicts  the  other  fable,  but 
originally  in  the  very  humble  character  of  call-hoy  or 
deputy  prompter,  whose  business  it  was  to  summon 
each  performer  according  to  his  order  of  coming  upon 
the  stage.  This  story,  however,  quite  as  much  as  the 
other,  is  irreconcileable  with  the  discovery  recently 
made  by  Mr.  Collier,  that  in  1589  Shakspeare  was  a 
shareholder  in  the  important  property  of  a  principal 
A  London  theatre.  It  seems  destined  that  all  the  un- 
doubted facts  of  Shakspeare's  life  should  come  to  us 
through  the  channel  of  legal  documents,  which  are 
better  evidence  even  than  imperial  medals  ;  whilst,  on 
the  other  hand,  all  the  fabulous  anecdotes  not  having 
an   attorney's   seal   to   them,  seem  to  have  been  the 


SHAKSPEARE.  67 

fictions  of  the  wonder  maker.  The  plain  presumption 
from  the  record  of  Shakspeare's  situation  in  1589, 
coupled  with  the  fact  that  his  first  arrival  in  London 
was  possibly  not  until  1587,  but  according  to  the  earli- 
est account  not  before  1586,  a  space  of  time  which 
leaves  but  little  room  for  any  remarkable  changes  of 
situation,  seems  to  be,  that,  either  in  requital  of  ser- 
vices done  to  the  players  by  the  poet's  family,  or  in 
consideration  of  money  advanced  by  his  father-in-law, 
or  on  account  of  Shakspeare's  personal  accomplish- 
ments as  an  actor,  and  as  an  adapter  of  dramatic 
worksite  the  stage  ;  for  one  of  these  reasons,  or  for  all 
of  them  united,  William  Shakspeare,  about  the  23d 
year  of  his  age,  was  adopted  into  the  partnership  of  a 
respectable  histrionic  company,  possessing  a  first-rate 
theatre  in  the  metropolis.  If  1586  were  the  year  in 
which  he  came  up  to  London,  it  seems  probable 
enough  that  his  immediate  motive  to  that  step  was  the 
increasing  distress  of  his  father ;  for  in  that  year  John 
Shakspeare  resigned  the  office  of  alderman.  There  is, 
however,  a  bare  possibility  that  Shakspeare  might  have 
gone  to  London  about  the  time  when  he  completed  his 
twenty-first  year,  that  is,  in  the  spring  of  1585,  but  not 
earlier.  Nearly  two  years  after  the  birth  of  his  eldest 
daughter  Susanna,  his  wife  lay  in  for  a  second  and  a 
last  time  ;  but  she  then  brought  her  husband  twins,  a 
son  and  a  daughter.  These  children  were  baptized  in 
February  of  the  year  1585  ;  so  that  Shakspeare'sl 
whole  family  of  three  children  were  born  and  baptized/ 
two  months  before  he  completed  his  majority.  The 
twins  were  baptized  by  the  names  of  Hamnet  and 
Judith,  those  being   the  names  of  two  amongst  their 


Ho  SHAKSPEAKE. 

sponsors,  viz.,  Mr.  Sadler  and  his  wife.  Hamnet, 
which  is  a  remarkable  name  in  itself,  becomes  still 
more  so  from  its  resemblance  to  the  immortal  name  of 
Hamlet  ^"^  the  Dane  ;  it  was,  however,  the  real  baptis- 
mal name  of  Mr.  Sadler,  a  friend  of  Shakspeare's, 
al)out  fourteen  years  older  than  himself.  Shakspeare's 
son  must  then  have  been  most  interesting  to  his  heart, 
both  as  a  twin  child  and  as  his  only  boy.  He  died  in 
1596,  when  he  was  about  eleven  years  old.  Both 
daughters  survived  their  father;  both  married;  both 
left  issue,  and  thus  gave  a  chance  for  continuing  the 
succession  from  the  great  poet.  But  all  the  four 
grandchildren  died  without  offspring. 

Of  Shakspeare  personally,  at  least  of  Shakspeare 
the  man,  as  distinguished  from  the  author,  there 
remains  little  more  to  record.  Already  in  1592, 
Greene,  in  his  posthumous  Groat's-worth  of  Wit,  had 
expressed  the  earliest  vocation  of  Shakspeare  in  the 
following  sentence  :  '  There  is  an  upstart  crow,  beau- 
tified with  our  feathers ;  in  his  own  conceit  the  only 
Shakscene  in  a  country ! '  This  alludes  to  Shak- 
speare's office  of  recasting,  and  even  recomposing, 
dramatic  works,  so  as  to  fit  them  for  representation ; 
and  Master  Greene,  it  is  probable,  had  suffered  in  his 
self-estimation,  or  in  his  purse,  by  the  alterations  in 
some  piece  of  his  own,  which  the  duty  of  Shakspeare 
to  the  general  interest  of  the  theatre  had  obliged  him 
to  make.  In  1591  it  has  been  supposed  that  Shak- 
speare wrote  his  first  drama,  the  Two  Gentlemen  of 
Verona ;  the  least  characteristically  marked  of  all  his 
plays,  and,  with  the  exception  of- Love's  Labor's  Lost, 
the  least  interesting. 


SHAKSPEARE.      "^^L^  -i^  0  2'v  69 

From  this  year,  1591  to  that  of  1611,  are  just 
twenty  years,  within  which  space  lie  the  whole 
dramatic  creations  of  Shakspeare,  averaging  nearly 
one  for  every  six  months.  In  1611  was  written  the 
Tempest,  which  is  supposed  to  have  been  the  last  of 
all  Shakspeare's  works.  Even  on  that  account,  as  Mr. 
Campbell  feelingly  observes,  it  has  *  a  sort  of  sacred- 
ness ; '  and  it  is  a  most  remarkable  fact,  and  one 
calculated  to  make  a  man  superstitious,  that  in  this 
play  the  great  enchanter  Prospero,  in  whom,  '  as  if 
conscious,''  says  Mr.  Campbell,  '  that  this  would  he  his 
last  work,  the  poet  has  been  inspired  to  typify  himself 
as  a  wise,  potent,  and  benevolent  magician,^  of  whom, 
indeed,  as  of  Shakspeare  himself,  it  may  be  said,  that 
*  within  that  circle '  (the  circle  of  his  own  art)  '  none 
durst  tread  but  he,'  solemnly  and  forever  renounces 
his  mysterious  functions,  symbolically  breaks  his  en- 
chanter's wand,  and  declares  that  he  will  bury  his 
books,  his  science,  and  his  secrets, 

*  Deeper  than  did  ever  plummet  sound.' 

Nay,  it  is  even  ominous,  that  in  this  play,  and  from 
the  voice  of  Prospero,  issues  that  magnificent  prophecy 
of  the  total  destruction  which  should  one  day  swallow 
up 

•  The  solemn  temples,  the  great  globe  itself, 
Yea  all  which  it  inherit.' 

And  this  prophecy  is  followed  immediately  by  a  most 
profound  ejaculation,  gathering  into  one  pathetic  ab- 
straction the  total  philosophy  of  life : 

'  We  are  such  stuff 
As  dreams  are  made  of ;  and  our  little  life 
Is  rounded  by  a  sleep  ; ' 


70  SHAKSPEARE. 

that  is,  in  effect,  our  life  is  a  little  tract  of  feverish 
vigils,  surrounded  and  islanded  by  a  shoreless  ocean  of 
sleep  —  sleep  before  birth,  sleep  after  death. 

These  remarkable  passages  were  probably  not  unde- 
signed ;  but  if  we  suppose  them  to  have  been  thrown 
off  without  conscious  notice  of  their  tendencies,  then, 
according  to  the  superstition  of  the  ancient  Grecians, 
they  would  have  been  regarded  as  prefiguring  words, 
prompted  by  the  secret  genius  that  accompanies  every 
man,  such  as  insure  along  with  them  their  own  accom- 
plishment. With  or  without  intention,  however,  it  is 
believed  that  Shakspeare  wrote  nothing  more  after  this 
exquisite  romantic  drama.  With  respect  to  the  re- 
mainder of  his  personal  history.  Dr.  Drake  and  others 
have  supposed,  that  during  the  twenty  years  from  1591 
to  1611,  he  visited  Stratford  often,  and  latterly  once  a 
year. 

In  1589  he  had  possessed  some  share  in  a  theatre  ; 
in  1596  he  had  a  considerable  share.  Through  Lord 
Southampton,  as  a  surviving  friend  of  Lord  Essex,  who 
was  viewed  as  the  martyr  to  his  Scottish  politics,  there 
can  be  no  doubt  that  Shakspeare  had  acquired  the 
favor  of  James  I. ;  and  accordingly,  on  the  29th  of 
May,  1603,  about  two  months  after  the  king's  acces- 
sion to  the  throne  of  England,  a  patent  was  granted 
to  the  company  of  players  who  possessed  the  Globe 
theatre  ;  in  which  patent  Shakspeare's  name  stands 
second.  This  patent  raised  the  company  to  the  rank 
of  his  majesty's  servants,  whereas  previously  they  are 
supposed  to  have  been  simply  the  servants  of  the  Lord 
Chamberlain.  Perhaps  it  was  in  grateful  acknowledg- 
ment of  this  royal  favor  that  Shakspeare  afterwards,  in 


SHAKSPEARE.  71 

1606,  paid  that  sublime  compliment  to  the  house  of 
Stuart,  which  is  involved  in  the  vision  shown  to  Mac- 
beth. This  vision  is  managed  with  exquisite  skill.  It 
was  impossible  to  display  the  whole  series  of  princes 
from  Macbeth  to  James  1. ;  but  he  beholds  the  posterity 
of  Banquo,  one  '  gold-bound  brow '  succeeding  to 
another,  until  he  comes  to  an  eighth  apparition  of  a 
Scottish  king, 

'  Who  bears  a  glass 
Which  shows  hhn  many  more  ;   and  some  he  sees 
Who  tiDofold  balls  and  treble  sceptres  carry  ; ' 

thus  bringing  down  without  tedium  the  long  succession 
to  the  very  person  of  James  I.,  by  the  symbolic  image 
of  the  two  crowns  united  on  one  head. 

About  the  beginning  of  the  century  Shakspeare  had 
become  rich  enough  to  purchase  the  best  house  in 
Stratford,  called  The  Great  House^  which  name  he 
altered  to  New  Place;  and  in  1602  he  bought  one 
hundred  and  seven  acres  adjacent  to  this  house  for  a 
sum  (c£320)  corresponding  to  about  1500  guineas  of 
modern  money.  Malone  thinks  that  he  purchased  the 
house  as  early  as  1597 ;  and  it  is  certain  that  about 
that  time  he  was  able  to  assist  his  father  in  obtaining  a 
renewed  grant  of  arms  from  the  Herald's  College,  and 
therefore,  of  course,  to  re-establish  his  father's  fortunes. 
Ten  years  of  well-directed  industry,  viz.,  from  1591  to 
1601,  and  the  prosperity  of  the  theatre  in  which  he 
was  a  proprietor,  had  raised  him  to  affluence ;  and 
after  another  ten  years,  improved  with  the  same  suc- 
cess, he  was  able  to  retire  with  an  income  of  <£300,  or 
(according  to  the  customary  computations)  in  modern 
money  of  .£1500,  per  annum.      Shakspeare  was  in 


72 


SHAKSPEAKE. 


\ 


fact  the  first  man  of  letters,  Pope  the  second,  and  Sir 
.Walter  Scott  the  third,  who,  in  Great  Britain,  has  ever 
jrealized  a  large  fortune  by  literature ;  or  in  Christen- 
dom, if  we  except  Voltaire,  and  two  dubious  cases  in 
Italy.  The  four  or  five  latter  years  of  his  life  Shak- 
speare  passed  in  dignified  ease,  in  profound  meditation, 
we  may  be  sure,  and  in  universal  respect,  at  his  native 
town  of  Stratford ;  and  there  he  died,  on  the  23d  of 
April,  1616.18 

His  daughter  Susanna  had  been  married  on  the  5th 
of  June  of  the  year  1607,  to  Dr.  John  Hall,^^  a  physi- 
cian in  Stratford.  The  doctor  died  in  November, 
1635,  aged  sixty ;  his  wife,  at  the  age  of  sixty-six,  on 
July  11,  1640.  They  had  one  child,  a  daughter, 
named  Elizabeth,  born  in  1608,  married  April  22, 
1626,  to  Thomas  Nash,  Esq.,  left  a  widow  in  1647, 
and  subsequently  remarried  to  Sir  John  Barnard  ;  but 
this  Lady  Barnard,  the  sole  grand-daughter  of  the 
poet,  had  no  children  by  either  marriage.  The  other 
daughter,  Judith,  on  February  10,  1616,  (about  ten 
weeks  before  her  father's  death,)  married  Mr.  Thomas 
Quiney  of  Stratford,  by  whom  she  had  three  sons, 
Shakspeare,  Richard,  and  Thomas.  Judith  was  about 
thirty-one  years  old  at  the  time  of  her  marriage  ;  and^ 
living  just  forty-six  years  afterwards,  she  died  in 
February,  1662,  at  the  age  of  seventy*%C\'en.  Her 
three  sons  died  without  issue  i  and  thus,  in  the  direct 
lineal  descent,  it  is  certain  that  no  representative  has 
survived  of  this  transcendent  poet,  the  most  august 
amongst  created  intellects. 

After  this  review  of  Shakspeare's  life,  it  becomes 
our  duty  to  take  a  summary  survey  of  his  works,  of 


^zm 


SHAKSPEARE.  73 

his  intellectual  powers,  and  of  his  station  in  literature. 
a  station  which  is  now  irrevocably  settled,  not  so  much 
(which  happens  in  other  cases)  by  a  vast  overbalance 
of  favorable  suffrages,  as  by  acclamation  ;  not  so  much 
by  the  voices  of  those  who  admire  him  up  to  the  verge 
of  idolatry,  as  by  the  acts  of  those  who  everywhere 
seek  for  his  works  among  the  primal  necessities  of 
life,  demand  them,  and  crave  them  as  they  do  their 
daily  bread  ;  not  so  much  by  eulogy  openly  proclaim- 
ing itself,  as  by  the  silent  homage  recorded  in  the 
endless  multiplication  of  what  he  has  bequeathed  us ; 
not  so  much  by  his  own  compatriots,  who,  with  regard 
to  almost  every  other  author,  20  compose  the  total 
amount  of  his  effective  audience,  as  by  the  unanimous 
'  all  hail ! '  of  intellectual  Christendom  ;  finally,  not 
by  the  hasty  partisanship  of  his  own  generation,  nor  by 
the  biassed  judgment  of  an  age  trained  in  the  same 
modes  of  feeling  and  of  thinking  with  himself,  — but  by 
the  solemn  award  of  generation  succeeding  to  genera- 
tion, of  one  age  correcting  the  obliquities  or  peculiari- 
ties of  another ;  by  the  verdict  of  two  hundred  and 
thirty  years,  which  have  now  elapsed  since  the  very 
latest  of  his  creations,  or  of  two  hundred  and  forty- 
seven  years  if  we  date  from  the  earliest ;  a  verdict 
which  has  been  continually  revived  and  re-opened, 
probed,  seat'bhed,  vexed,  by  criticism  in  every  spirit, 
from  the  most  genial  and  intelligent,  down  to  the  most 
malignant  and  scurrilously  hostile  which  feeble  heads 
and  great  ignorance  could  suggest  when  cooperating 
with  impure  hearts  and  narrow  sensibilities  ;  a  verdict, 
in  short,  sustained  and  countersigned  by  a  longer  series 
of  writers,  many  of  them  eminent  for  wit  or  learning, 


74  SHAKSPEAEE. 

than  were  ever  before  congregated  upon  any  inquest 
relating  to  any  author,  be  he  who  he  might,  ancient  21 
or  modern,  Pagan  or  Christian.  It  was  a  most  witty 
saying  with  respect  to  a  piratical  and  knavish  publisher, 
who  made  a  trade  of  insulting  the  memories  of  de- 
ceased authors  by  forged  writings,  that  he  was  '  among 
the  new  terrors  of  death.'  But  in  the  gravest  sense  it 
may  be  affirmed  of  Shakspeare,  that  he  is  among  the 
modern  luxuries  of  life  ;  that  life,  in  fact,  is  a  new 
thing,  and  one  more  to  be  coveted,  since  Shakspeare 
has  extended  the  domains  of  human  consciousness, 
and  pushed  its  dark  frontiers  into  regions  not  so  much 
as  dimly  descried  or  even  suspected  before  his  time, 
far  less  illuminated  (as  now  they  are)  by  beauty  and 
tropical  luxuriance  of  life.  For  instance,  —  a  single 
instance,  indeed  one  which  in  itself  is  a  world  of  new 
revelation,  —  the  possible  beauty  of  the  female  char- 
acter had  not  been  seen  as  in  a  dream  before  Shak- 
speare called  into  perfect  life  the  radiant  shapes  of 
Desdemona,  of  Imogene,  of  Hermione,  of  Perdita,  of 
Ophelia,  of  Miranda,  and  many  others.  The  Una  of 
Spenser,  earlier  by  ten  or  fifteen  years  than  most  of 
these,  was  an  idealized  portrait  of  female  innocence 
and  virgin  purity,  but  too  shadowy  and  unreal  for  a 
dramatic  reality.  And  as  to  the  Grecian  classics,  let 
not  the  reader  imagine  for  an  instant  that  any  prototype 
in  this  field  of  Shakspearian  power  can  be  looked  for 
there.  The  Antigone  and  the  Electra  of  the  tragic 
poets  are  the  two  leading  female  characters  that  classi- 
cal antiquity  offers  to  our  respect,  but  assuredly  not  to 
our  impassioned  love,  as  disciplined  and  exalted  in  the 
school  of  Shakspeare.    They  challenge  our  admiration, 


SHAKSPEARE.  75 

severe,  and  even  stern,  as  impersonations  of  filial  duty, 
cleaving  to  the  steps  of  a  desolate  and  afflicted  old 
man ;  or  of  sisterly  affection,  maintaining  the  rights  of 
a  brother  under  circumstances  of  peril,  of  desertion, 
and  consequently  of  perfect  self-reliance.  Iphigenia, 
again,  though  not  dramatically  coming  before  us  in  her 
own  person,  but  according  to  the  beautiful  report  of  a 
spectator,  presents  us  with  a  fine  statuesque  model  of 
heroic  fortitude,  and  of  one  whose  young  heart,  even 
in  the  very  agonies  of  her  cruel  immolation,  refused  to 
forget,  by  a  single  indecorous  gesture,  or  so  much  as  a 
moment's  neglect  of  her  own  princely  descent,  and 
that  she  herself  was  '  a  lady  in  the  land.'  These  are 
fine  marble  groups,  but  they  are  not  the  warm  breath- 
ing realities  of  Shakspeare  ;  there  is  '  no  speculation ' 
in  their  cold  marble  eyes ;  the  breath  of  life  is  not  in 
their  nostrils ;  the  fine  pulses  of  womanly  sensibilities 
are  not  throbbing  in  their  bosoms.  And  besides  this 
immeasurable  difference  between  the  cold  moony  re- 
flexes of  life,  as  exhibited  by  the  power  of  Grecian 
art,  and  the  true  sunny  life  of  Shakspeare,  it  must  be 
observed  that  the  Antigones,  &c.  of  the  antique  put 
forward  but  one  single  trait  of  character,  like  the  aloe 
with  its  single  blossom.  This  solitary  feature  is  pre- 
sented to  us  as  an  abstraction,  and  as  an  insulated 
quality ;  whereas  in  Shakspeare  all  is  presented  in  the 
concrete ;  that  is  to  say,  not  brought  forward  in  relief, 
as  by  some  effort  of  an  anatomical  artist ;  but  em- 
bodied and  imbedded,  so  to  speak,  as  by  the  force  of  a 
creative  nature,  in  the  complex  system  of  a  human 
life  J  a  life  in  which  all  the  elements  move  and  play 
simultaneously,  and  with  something  more  than  mere 


70  SHAKSPEARE. 

simultaneity  or  co-existence,  acting  and  re-acting  each 
upon  the  other,  nay,  even  acting  by  each  other  and 
through  each  other.  In  Shakspeare's  characters  is  felt 
for  ever  a  real  organic  life,  where  each  is  for  the 
whole  and  in  the  whole,  and  where  the  whole  is  for 
each  and  in  each.     They  only  are  real  incarnations. 

The  Greek  poets  could  not  exhibit  any  approxima- 
tions to  female  character,  without  violating  the  truth  of 
Grecian  life,  and  shocking  the  feelings  of  the  audience. 
The  drama  with  the  Greeks,  as  with  us,  though  much 
less  than  with  us,  was  a  picture  of  human  life  ;  and 
that  which  could  not  occur  in  life  could  not  wisely  be 
exhibited  on  the  stage.  Now,  in  ancient  Greece, 
women  were  secluded  from  the  society  of  men.  The 
conventual  sequestration  of  the  ywaixmlng,  or  female 
apartment  22  of  the  house,  and  the  Mahommedan  con- 
secration of  its  threshold  against  the  ingress  of  males, 
had  been  transplanted  from  Asia  into  Greece  thousands 
of  years  perhaps  before  either  convents  or  Mahommed 
existed.  Thus  barred  from  all  open  social  intercourse, 
women  could  not  develope  or  express  any  character  by 
word  or  action.  Even  to  have  a  character,  violated,  to 
a  Grecian  mind,  the  ideal  portrait  of  feminine  excel- 
lence ;  whence,  perhaps,  partly  the  too  generic,  too 
little  individualized,  style  of  Grecian  beauty.  But 
prominently  to  express  a  character  was  impossible 
under  the  common  tenor  of  Grecian  life,  unless  when 
high  tragical  catastrophes  transcended  the  decorums  of 
that  tenor,  or  for  a  brief  interval  raised  the  curtain 
which  veiled  it.  Hence  the  subordinate  part  which 
women  play  upon  the  Greek  stage  in  all  but  some  half 
dozen  cases.     In  the  paramount  tragedy  on  that  stage, 


SHAKSPEARE.  77 

the  model  tragedy,  the  (Edipus  Tyr annus  of  Sophocles, 
there  is  virtually  no  woman  at  all ;  for  Jocasta  is  a 
party  to  the  story  merely  as  the  dead  Laius  or  the  self- 
murdered  Sphinx  was  a  party,  viz.,  by  her  contribu- 
tions to  the  fataUties  of  the  event,  not  by  anything  she 
does  or  says  spontaneously.  In  fact,  the  Greek  poet, 
if  a  wise  poet,  could  not  address  himself  genially  to  a 
task  in  which  he  must  begin  by  shocking  the  sensibili- 
ties of  his  countrymen.  And  hence  followed,  not  only 
the  dearth  of  female  characters  in  the  Grecian  drama, 
but  also  a  second  result  still  more  favorable  to  the  sense 
of  a  new  power  evolved  by  Shakspeare.  Whenever 
the  common  law  of  Grecian  life  did  give  way,  it  was, 
as  we  have  observed,  to  the  suspending  force  of  some 
great  convulsion  or  tragical  catastrophe.  This  for  a 
moment  (like  an  earthquake  in  a  nunnery)  would  set 
at  liberty  even  the  timid,  fluttering  Grecian  women, 
those  doves  of  the  dove-cot,  and  would  call  some  of 
them  into  action.  But  which  ?  Precisely  those  of 
energetic  and  masculine  minds  ;  the  timid  and  femi- 
nine would  but  shrink  the  more  from  public  gaze  and 
from  •  tumult.  Thus  it  happened,  that  such  female 
characters  as  loere  exhibited  in  Greece,  could  not  but 
be  the  harsh  and  the  severe.  If  a  gentle  Ismene 
appeared  for  a  moment  in  contest  with  some  energetic 
sister  Antigone,  (and,  chiefly,  perhaps,  by  way  of  draw- 
ing out  the  fiercer  character  of  that  sister,)  she  was 
soon  dismissed  as  unfit  for  scenical  eflect.  So  that  not 
only  were  female  characters  few,  but,  moreover,  of 
these  few  the  majority  were  but  repetitions  of  mas- 
culine qualities  in  female  persons.  Female  agency 
being  seldom  summoned  on  the  stage,  except  when  it 


78  SHAKSPEARE. 

had  received  a  sort  of  special  dispensation  from  its 
sexual  character,  by  some  terrific  convulsions  of  the 
house  or  the  city,  naturally  it  assumed  the  style  of 
action  suited  to  these  circumstances.  And  hence  it 
arose,  that  not  woman  as  she  differed  from  man,  but 
woman  as  she  resembled  man  —  woman,  in  short,  seen 
under  circumstances  so  dreadful  as  to  abolish  the  effect 
of  sexual  distinction,  was  the  woman  of  the  Greek 
tragedy.^3  ^t^^  hence  generally  arose  for  Shakspeare 
the  wider  field,  and  the  more  astonishing  by  its  perfect 
novelty,  when  he  first  introduced  female  characters, 
not  as  mere  varieties  or  echoes  of  masculine  charac- 
ters, a  Medea  or  Clytemnestra,  or  a  vindictive  Hecuba, 
the  mere  tigress  of  the  tragic  tiger,  but  female  charac- 
ters that  had  the  appropriate  beauty  of  female  nature  ; 
woman  no  longer  grand,  terrific,  and  repulsive,  but 
woman  'after  her  kind' — the  other  hemisphere  of 
the  dramatic  world  ;  woman,  running  through  the  vast 
gamut  of  womanly  loveliness  ;  woman,  as  emancipated, 
exalted,  ennobled,  under  a  new  law  of  Christian 
morality  ;  woman,  the  sister  and  coequal  of  man,  no 
longer"  his  slave,  his  prisoner,  and  sometimes  his  rebel. 
'  It  is  a  far  cry  to  Loch  Awe ;'  and  from  the  Athe- 
nian stage  to  the  stage  of  Shakspeare,  it  may  be  said, 
is  a  prodigious  interval.  True  ;  but  prodigious  as  it 
is,  there  is  really  nothing  between  them.  The  Roman 
stage,  at  least  the  tragic  stage,  as  is  well  known,  was 
put  out,  as  by  an  extinguisher,  by  the  cruel  amphithe- 
atre, just  as  a  candle  is  made  pale  and  ridiculous  by 
daylight.  Those  who  were  fresh  from  the  real  mur- 
ders of  the  bloody  amphitheatre  regarded  with  con- 
tempt the  mimic  murders  of  the  stage.     Stimulation 


SHAKSPEARE.  79 

too  coarse  and  too  intense  had  its  usual  effect  in 
making  the  sensibilities  callous.  Christian  emperors 
arose  at  length,  who  abolished  the  amphitheatre  in  its 
bloodier  features.  But  by  that  time  the  genius  of  the 
tragic  muse  had  long  slept  the  sleep  of  death.  And 
that  muse  had  no  resurrection  until  the  age  of  Shak- 
speare.  So  that,  notwithstanding  a  gulf  of  nineteen 
centuries  and  upwards  separates  Shakspeare  from 
Euripides,  the  last  of  the  surviving  Greek  tragedians, 
the  one  is  still  the  nearest  successor  of  the  other,  just 
as  Connaught  and  the  islands  in  Clew  Bay  are  next 
neighbors  to  America,  ahhough  three  thousand  watery 
columns,  each  of  a  cubic  mile  in  dimensions,  divide  .  ^^ 
them  from  each  other.  ^*J'^^\jiP' 

A  second  reason,  which  lends  an  emphasis  of  novelty  ^f 
and  effective  power  to  Shakspeare's  female  world,  is  a  \;  Cj 
peculiar  fact  of  contrast  which  exists  between  that  and 
his  corresponding  world  of  men.  Let  us  explain.  The 
purpose  and  the  intention  of  the  Grecian  stage  was  not 
primarily  to  develope  human  character,  whether  in 
men  or  in  women :  human  fates  were  its  object ;  great 
tragic  situations  under  the  mighty  control  of  ^  vast 
cloudy  destiny,  dimly  descried  at  intervals,  and  brood- 
ing over  human  life  by  mysterious  agencies,  and  for 
mysterious  ends.  Man,  no  longer  the  representative  of 
an  august  will,  man  the  passion-puppet  of  fate,  could 
not  with  any  effect  display  what  we  call  a  character, 
which  is  a  distinction  between  man  and  man,  ema- 
nating originally  from  the  will,  and  expressing  its 
determinations,  moving  under  the  large  variety  of 
human  impulses.  The  will  is  the  central  pivot  of 
character;   and  this  was   obliterated,   thwarted,   can- 


80 


SHAKSPEARE. 


^ 


celled  by  the  dark  fatalism  which  brooded  over  the 
Grecian  stage.  That  explanation  will  sufficiently  clear 
up  the  reason  why  marked  or  complex  variety  of  char- 
acter was  slighted  by  the  great  principles  of  the  Greek 
tragedy.  And  every  scholar  who  has  studied  that 
grand  drama  of  Greece  with  feeling,  —  that  drama, 
so  magnificent,  so  regal,  so  stately,  —  and  who  has 
thoughtfully  investigated  its  principles,  and  its  differ- 
ence from  the  English  drama,  will  acknowledge  that 
I  powerful  and  elaborate  character,  character,  for  in- 
1  stance,  that  could  employ  the  fiftieth  part  of  that  pro- 
jfound  analysis  which  has  been  applied  to  Hamlet, 
to  Falstaff,  to  Lear,  to  Othello,  and  applied  by  Mrs. 
Jamieson  so  admirably  to  the  full  development  of  the 
Shakspearian  heroines,  would  have  been  as  much 
wasted,  nay,  would  have  been  defeated,  and  interrupted 
the  blind  agencies  of  fate,  just  in  the  same  way  as  it 
would  injure  the  shadowy  grandeur  of  a  ghost  to  indi- 
vidualize it  too  much.  Milton's  angels  are  slightly 
touched,  superficially  touched,  with  differences  of 
^''character;  but  they  are  such  differences,  so  simple 
and  general,  as  are  just  sufficient  to  rescue  them  from 
the  reproach  applied  to  Virgil's  'fortemque  Gyan, 
fortemque  Cloanthem ; '  just  sufficient  to  make  them 
knowable  apart.  Pliny  speaks  of  painters  who  painted 
in  one  or  two  colors  ;  and,  as  respects  the  angelic 
characters,  Milton  does  so ;  he  is  monochromatic.  So, 
and  for  reasons  resting  upon  the  same  ultimate  philoso- 
phy, were  the  mighty  architects  of  the  Greek  tragedy. 
They  also  were  monochromatic  ;  they  also,  as  to  the 
characters  of  their  persons,  painted  in  one  color.  And 
so  far  there  might  have  been  the  same  novelty  in  Shak- 


j;^    ^,  SHAKSPEAKE.  8l 

>^  .  .  . 

peare's  men  as  in  his  women.     There   might   have 
been ;  but  the  reason  why  there  is  not,  must  be  sought 
in  the  fact,  that  History,  the  muse  of  History,  had 
there  even  been  no  such  muse  as  Melpomene,  would 
have    forced    us    into    an    acquaintance   with   human 
character.     History,  as   the   representative   of  actual 
life,   of  real   man,  gives"  us  powerful  delineations  of 
character  in  its  chief  agents,  that  is,  in  men ;   and 
therefore  it  is  that  Shakspeare,  the  absolute  creator  of/ 
female  character,  was  but  the  mightiest  of  all  painters  j 
•    with  regard  to  male  character.    Take  a  single  instance,  i 
The  Antony  of  Shakspeare,  immortal  for  its  execution,  \ 
is  found,  after  all,  as  regards  the  primary  conception,  \ 
in  history.     Shakspeare's  delineation  is  but  the  expan-  ■ 
sion   of  the    germ    already   preexisting,   by   way   of  * 
scattered  fragments,  in  Cicero's  Philippics,  in  Cicero's  I 
^■vj  Letters,  in  Appian,  &c.     But  Cleopatra,  equally  fine,  I 

»^fs     is  a  pure  creation  of  art.     The  situation  and  the  scenic! 

!-     tf  circumstances   belong  to   history,   but   the   character} 
^'    belongs  to  Shakspeare. 

^^  ^v  In  the  great  world,  therefore,  of  woman,  as  the 
interpreter  of  the  shifting  phases  and  the  lunar  varie- 
ties of  that  mighty  changeable  planet,  that  lovely 
satellite  of  man,  Shakspeare  stands  not  the  first  only,,  j 
not  the  original  only,  but  is  yet  the  sole  authentic  f 
oracle  of  truth.  Woman,  therefore,  the  beauty  of  the 
female  mind,  this  is  one  great  field  of  his  power.  The- 
supernatural  world,  the  world  of  apparitions,  that  is- 
another.  For  reasons  which  it  would  be  easy  to  give,, 
reasons  emanating  from  the  gross  mythology  of  the 
ancients,  no  Grecian,^^  no  Roman,  could  have  cour 
ceived  a  ghost.  That  shadowy  conception,  the  pro- 
6 


iy\  a"*^    82     v^   ^^  SHAKSPEARE. 


^ 


testing  apparition,  the  awful  projection  of  the  'human 
conscience,  belongs  to  the  Christian  mind.  And  in  all 
Christendom,  who,  let  us  ask,  who,  who  but  Shakspeare 
has  found  the  power  for  effectually  working  this  mys- 
terious mode  of  being  ?  In  summoning  back  to  earth 
'  the  majesty  of  buried  Denmark,'  how  like  an  awful 
necromancer  does  Shakspeare  appear !  All  the  pomps 
and  grandeurs  which  religion,  which  the  grave,  which 
the  popular  superstition  had  gathered  about  the  subject 
of  apparitions,  are  here  converted  to  his  purpose,  and 
bend  to  one  awful  effect.  The  wormy  grave  brought 
into  antagonism  with  the  scenting  of  the  early  dawn ; 
the  trumpet  of  resurrection  suggested,  and  again  as  an 
antagonist  idea  to  the  crowing  of  the  cock,  (a  bird 
ennobled  in  the  Christian  mythus  by  the  part  he  is 
made  to  play  at  the  Crucifixion;)  its  starting  *as  a 
guilty  thing '  placed  in  opposition  to  its  majestic  ex- 
pression of  offended  dignity  when  struck  at  by  the 
partisans  of  the  sentinels ;  its  awful  allusions  to  the 
secrets  of  its  prison-house ;  its  ubiquity,  contrasted 
with  its  local  presence ;  its  aerial  substance,  yet 
clothed  in  palpable  armor ;  the  heart-shaking  solemnity 
of  its  language,  and  the  appropriate  scenery  of  its 
haunt,  viz.,  the  ramparts  of  a  capital  fortress,  with  no 
witnesses  but  a  few  gentlemen  mounting  guard  at  the 
dead  of  night,  —  what  a  mist,  what  a  mirage  of  vapor, 
is  here  accumulated,  through  which  the  dreadful  being 
in  the  centre  looms  upon  us  in  far  larger  proportions, 
than  could  have  happened  had  it  been  insulated  and 
left  naked  of  this  circumstantial  pomp !  In  the  Tem- 
pest, again,  what  new  modes  of  life,  preternatural,  yet 
far  as  the  poles  from   the   spiritualities  of  religion! 


SHAKSPEARE. 

Ariel  in  antithesis  to  Caliban  !  What  is  most  ethereal 
to  what  is  most  animal !  A  phantom  of  air,  an 
abstraction  of  the  dawn  and  of  vesper  sun-lights,  a 
bodiless  sylph  on  the  one  hand ;  on  the  other  a  gross 
carnal  monster,  like  the  Miltonic  Asmodai,  '  the  flesh- 
liest incubus '  among  the  fiends,  and  yet  so  far  enno- 
bled into  interest  by  his  intellectual  power,  and  by  the 
grandeur  of  misanthropy !  ^5  In  the  Midsummer- 
NigJifs  Dream,  again,  we  have  the  old  traditional 
fairy,  a  lovely  mode  of  preternatural  life,  remodified 
by  Shakspeare's  eternal  talisman.  Oberon  and  Titania 
remind  us  at  first  glance  of  Ariel.  They  approach, 
but  how  far  they  recede.  They  are  like  —  *  like,  but, 
oh,  how  different ! '  And  in  no  other  exliibition  of 
this  dreamy  population  of  the  moonlight  forests  and 
forest-lawns,  are  the  circumstantial  proprieties  of  fairy 
life  so  exquisitely  imagined,  sustained,  or  expressed. 
The  dialogue  between  Oberon  and  Titania  is,  of  itself, 
and  taken  separately  from  its  connection,  one  of  the 
most  delightful  poetic  scenes  that  literature  affords. 
The  witches  in  Macbeth  are  another  variety  of  super- 
natural life,  in  which  Shakspeare's  power  to  enchant 
and  to  disenchant  are  alike  portentous.  The  circum- 
stances of  the  blasted  heath,  the  army  at  a  distance, 
the  withered  attire  of  the  mysterious  hags,  and  the 
choral  litanies  of  their  fiendish  Sabbath,  are  as  finely 
imagined  in  their  kind  as  those  which  herald  and 
which  surround  the  ghost  in  Hamlet.  There  we  see 
the  positive  of  Shakspeare's  superior  power.  But 
now  turn  and  look  to  the  negative.  At  a  time  when 
the  trials  of  witches,  the  royal  book  on  demonology, 
and  popular  superstition  (all  so  far  useful,  as  they  pre- 


84  SHAKSPEARE. 

pared  a  basis  of  undoubting  faith  for  the  poet's  serious 
use  of  such  agencies)  had  degraded  and  polluted  the 
ideas  of  these  mysterious  beings  by  many  mean  asso- 
ciations, Shakspeare  does  not  fear  to  employ  them  in 
high  tragedy,  (a  tragedy  moreover  which,  though  not 
the  very  greatest  of  his  efforts  as  an  intellectual  whole, 
nor  as  a  struggle  of  passion,  is  among  the  greatest  in 
any  view,  and  positively  the  greatest  for  scenical  gran- 
deur, and  in  that  respect  makes  the  nearest  approach 
of  all  English  tragedies  to  the  Grecian  model;)  he 
does  not  fear  to  introduce,  for  the  same  appalling  effect 
as  that  for  which  ^schylus  introduced  the  Eumenides, 
a  triad  of  old  women,  concerning  whom  an  English 
wit  has  remarked  this  grotesque  peculiarity  in  the 
popular  creed  of  that  day,  —  that  although  potent  over 
winds  and  storms,  in  league  with  powers  of  darkness, 
they  yet  stood  in  awe  of  the  constable,  —  yet  relying 
on  his  own  supreme  power  to  disenchant  as  well  as  to 
enchant,  to  create  and  to  uncreate,  he  mixes  these 
.women  and  their  dark  machineries  with  the  power  of 
^  armies,  with  the  agencies  of  kings,  and  the  fortunes  of 
^^-  martial  kingdoms.  Such  was  the  sovereignty  of  this 
^If,,  poet,  so  mighty  its  compass  ! 

^  ,      A  third  fund  of  Shakspeare's  peculiar  power  lies  in 

/  his  teeming  fertility  of  fine  thoughts  and  sentiments. 

'    From  his  works  alone   might  be   gathered  a  golden 

bead-roll    of   thoughts    the    deepest,    subtilest,    most 

Y    pathetic,  and  yet  most  catholic  and  universally  intelli- 

w       gible  ;  the  most  characteristic,  also,  and  appropriate  to 

i/;^    the  particular  person,  the  situation,  and  the  case,  yet, 

at  the  same  time,  applicable  to  the  circumstances  of 

every  human  being,  under  all  the  accidents  of  life,  and 


SHAKSPEARE.  85 

all  vicissitudes  of  fortune.  But  this  subject  offers  so 
vast  a  field  of  observation,  it  being  so  eminently  the 
prerogative  of  Shakspeare  to  have  thought  more  finely 
and  more  extensively  than  all  other  poets  combined, 
that  we  cannot  wrong  the  dignity  of  such  a  theme  by 
doing  more,  in  our  narrow  limits,  than  simply  noticing 
it  as  one  of  the  emblazonries  upon  Shakspeare's 
shield. 

Fourthly,  we  shall  indicate  (and,  as  in  the  last  case, 
larely  indicate,  without  attempting  in  so  vast  a  field  to 
offer  any  inadequate  illustrations)  one  mode  of  Shak- 
speare's dramatic  excellence,  which  hitherto  has  not 
attracted  any  special  or  separate  notice.  We  allude  to 
the  forms  of  life,  and  natural  human  passion,  as  appai^r 
ent  in  the  structure  of  his  dialogue.  Among  the  manjn 
defects  and  infirmities  of  the  French  and  of  the  Italiafl 
drama,  indeed,  we  may  say  of  the  Greek,  the  dialogue 
proceeds  always  by  independent  speeches,  replying 
indeed  to  each  other,  but  never  modified  in  its  several 
openings  by  the  momentary  effect  of  its  several  termi-  ] 
nal  forms  immediately  preceding.  Now,  in  Shak- 
speare, who  first  set  an  example  of  that  most  important 
innovation,  in  all  his  impassioned  dialogues,  each  reply 
or  rejoinder  seems  the  mere  rebound  of  the  previous 
speech.  Every  form  of  natural  interruption^  breaking 
through  the  restraints  of  ceremony  under  the  impulses 
of  tempestuous  passion ;  every  form  of  hasty  interro- 
gative, ardent  reiteration  when  a  question  has  been 
evaded ;  every  form  of  scornful  repetition  of  the 
hostile  words;  every  impatient  continuation  of  the 
hostile  statement ;  in  short,  all  modes  and  formulae  by 
which  anger,  hurry,  fretfulness,  scorn,  impatience,  or 


86  SHAKSPEARE. 

excitement  under  any  movement  whatever,  can  disturb 

or  modify  or  dislocate  the  formal  bookish  style  of 
commencement,  —  these  are  as  rife  in  Shakspeare's 
dialogue  as  in  life  itself;  and  how  much  vivacity,  how 
profound  a  verisimilitude,  they  add  to  the  scenic  effect 
as  an  imitation  of  human  passion  and  real  life,  we  need 
not  say.  A  volume  might  be  written,  illustrating  the 
vast  varieties  of  Shakspeare's  art  and  power  in  this  one 
field  of  improvement ;  another  volume  might  be  dedi- 
cated to  the  exposure  of  the  lifeless  and  unnatural 
result  from  the  opposite  practice  in  the  foreign  stages 
of  France  and  Italy.  And  we  may  truly  say,  that 
were  Shakspeare  distinguished  from  them  by  this 
single  feature  of  nature  and  propriety,  he  would  on 
that  account  alone  have  merited  a  great  immortalit5^ 

The  dramatic  works  of  Shakspeare  generally  ac- 
knowledged to  be  ^nuine  consist  of  thirty -five  pieces. 
The  following  is  the  chronological  order  in  which  they 
are  supposed  to  have  been  written,  according  to  Mr. 
Malone,  as  given  in  his  second  edition  of  Shakspeare, 
and  b}'  Mr.  George  Chalmers  in  his  Supplemental 
Apology  for  the  Believers  in  the  Shakspeare  Papers : 

1.  The  Comedy  of  Errore, 

2.  LoTe's  Labor's  Lost, 

3.  Romeo  and  Juliet, 

4.  Henry  YJ.,  the  First  Part, 

5.  Henry  VI.,  the  Second  Part 

6.  Henry  VL,  the  Third  Part, 

7.  The  Two  Gentlemen  of  Verona,    1595 

8.  Richard  IH., 

9.  Richard  XL, 


Chalmers. 

Malone 

1591 

1592 

1592 

1594 

1592 

1596 

1593 

1589 

1595 

1591 

1595 

1591 

I,  1595 

1591 

1596 

1593 

1596 

1593 

m 


10.  Tlie  Menj  Wifw  cf 

11-  Hemij  IT.,  tfe  rhaft  Fat, 

12.  HflMj  IT.,  ite  Sirwi  Bat, 

13.  HcMj  T., 

IT  niMJrf, 

17.  A  MHiiiiMiiyi^s 

Id.TkeTaai^aftfce 

19.  AT s  Wdi  thM  bis  Wcfl, 


1597 

1597 

1S97 

1599 

U97 

1599 

tS97 

WH 

I9» 

1999 

1598 

1596 

1598 

i59i 

1911 
1991 


1919 
1911 


31. 

52.TfceTiM|nl, 

33.TheT«cttkll%kl, 

34.H£H7YIIL, 

35.0tUlB, 


1697 

16<;« 

19M 
KU 
1913 
1613 
1611 


1911 


88  SHAKSPEARE. 

second  edition  was  published  in  1632,  the  third  in 
1664,  and  the  fourth  in  1685,  all  in  folio;  but  the 
edition  of  1623  is  considered  the  most  authentic. 
Rowe  published  an  edition  in  seven  vols.  8vo,  in  1709. 
Editions  were  published  by  Pope,  in  six  vols.  4to,  in 
1725  ;  by  Warburton,  in  eight  vols.  Svo,  in  1747  ;  by 
Dr.  Johnson,  in  eight  vols.  Svo,  in  1765 ;  by  Stevens, 
in  four  vols.  Svo,  in  1766  ;  by  Malone,  in  ten  vols.  Svo, 
in  1789  ;  by  Alexander  Chalmers,  in  nine  vols.  Svo,  in 
1811 ;  by  Johnson  and  Steevens,  revised  by  Isaac  Reed, 
in  twenty-one  vols.  Svo,  in  1813  ;  and  the  Plays  and 
Poems,  with  notes  by  Malone,  were  edited  by  James 
Boswell,  and  published  in  twenty-one  vols.  Svo,  in 
1821.  Besides  these,  numerous  editions  have  been 
published  from  time  to  time. 


NOTES 


Note  1.  Page  7. 
Mr.  Campbell,  the  latest  editor  of  Shakspeare's  dramatic  works, 
observes  that  *  the  poet's  name  has  been  variously  written  Shax- 
peare,  Shackspeare,  Shakspeare,  and  Shakspere : '  to  which  varie- 
ties might  be  added  Shagspere,  from  the  Worcester  Marriage 
License,  published  in  1836.  But  the  fact  is,  that  by  combining 
with  all  the  differences  in  spelling  the  first  syllable,  all  those  in 
spelling  the  second,  more  than  twenty-five  distinct  varieties  of  the 
name  may  be  expanded,  (like  an  algebraic  series,)  for  the  choice  of 
the  curious  in  mis-spelling.  Above  all  things,  those  varieties  which 
arise  from  the  intercalation  of  the  middle  e,  (that  is,  the  e  immedi- 
ately before  the  final  syllable  spear,)  can  never  be  overlooked  by 
those  who  remember,  at  the  opening  of  the  Dunciad,  the  note  upon 
this  very  question  about  the  orthography  of  Shakspeare's  name,  as 
also  upon  the  other  great  question  about  the  title  of  the  immortal 
Satire,  Whether  it  ought  not  to  have  been  the  Dunceiade,  seeing  that 
Dunce,  its  great  author  and  progenitor,  cannot  possibly  dispense 
with  the  letter  e.  Meantime  we  must  remark,  that  the  first  three  of 
Mr.  Campbell's  variations  are  mere  caprices  of  the  press;  as  is 
Shagspere  ;  or,  more  probably,  this  last  euphonious  variety  arose  out 
of  the  gross  clownish  pronunciation  of  the  two  hiccuping  '  marks- 
men '  who  rode  over  to  Worcester  for  the  license ;  and  one  cannot 
forbear  laughing  at  the  bishop's  secretary  for  having  been  so  misled 
by  two  varlets,  professedly  incapable  of  signing  their  own  names. 
The  same  drunken  villains  had  cut  down  the  bribe's  name  Hatha- 
way into  Hathwey.    Finally,  to  treat  the  matter  with  seriousness, 


90  SHAKSPEARE. 

Sir  Frederick  Madden  has  siiown,  in  his  recent  letter  to  the  Society 
of  Antiquaries,  that  the  poet  himself  in  all  probability  wrote  the 
name  uniformly  Shakspere.  Orthography,  both  of  proper  names,  of 
appellatives,  and  of  words  universally,  was  very  unsettled  up  to  a 
period  long  subsequent  to  that  of  Shakspeare.  Still  it  must  usually 
have  happened  that  names  written  variously  and  laxly  by  others, 
would  be  written  uniformly  by  the  owners ;  especially  by  those 
owners  who  had  occasion  to  sign  their  names  frequently,  and  by 
literary  people,  whose  attention  was  often,  as  well  as  consciously, 
directed  to  the  proprieties  of  spelling.  Shakspeare  is  now  too 
familiar  to  the  eye  for  any  alteration  to  be  attempted  ;  but  it  is 
pretty  certain  that  Sir  Frederick  Madden  is  right  in  stating  the 
poet's  own  signature  to  have  been  uniformly  Shakspere.  It  is  so 
written  twice  in  the  course  of  his  will,  and  it  is  so  written  on  a 
blank  leaf  of  Florio's  English  translation  of  Montaigne's  Essays  ; 
a  book  recently  discovered,  and  sold,  on  account  of  its  autograph, 
for  a  hundred  guineas. 

Note  2.  Page  9. 
But,  as  a  proof  that,  even  in  the  case  of  royal  christenings,  it 
was  not  thought  pious  to  '  tempt  God,'  as  it  were  by  delay,  Edward 
VI.,  the  only  son  of  Henry  VIII.,  was  born  on  the  12lh  day  of 
October  in  the  year  1537.  And  there  was  a  delay  on  account  of  the 
sponsors,  since  the  birth  was  not  in  London.  Yet  how  little  that 
delay  was  made,  may  be  seen  by  this  fact :  The  birth  took  place  in 
the  dead  of  the  night,  the  day  was  Friday  ;  and  yet,  in  spite  of  all 
delay,  the  christening  was  most  pompously  celebrated  on  the  suc- 
ceeding Monday.  And  Prince  Arthur,  the  elder  brother  of  Henry 
VIII.,  Avas  christened  on  the  very  next  Sunday  succeeding  to  his 
birth,  notwithstanding  an  inevitable  delay,  occasioned  by  the  dis- 
tance of  Lord  Oxford,  his  godfather,  and  the  excessive  rains,  which 
prevented  the  earl  being  reached  by  couriers,  or  himself  reaching 
Winchester,  without  extraordinary  exertions. 

Note  3.    Page  16. 
A  great  modern  poet  refers  to  this  very  case  of  music  entering 
'  the  mouldy  chambers  of  the  dull  idiot's  brain  ; '  but  in  support  of 
what  seems  to  us  a  baseless  hypothesis. 

Note  4.    Page  16. 
Probably  Addison's  fear  of  the  national  feeling  was  a  good  deal 
strengthened  by  his  awe  of  Milton  and  of  Dryden,  both  of  whom 


NOTES.  91 

had  expressed  a  homage  towards  Shakspeare  which  language  cannot 
transcend.  Amongst  his  political  friends  also  were  many  intense 
admirers  of  Shakspeare. 

Note  5.  Page  IS. 
He  who  is  weak  enough  to  kick  and  spurn  his  own  native  litera- 
ture, even  if  it  were  done  with  more  knowledge  than  is  shov^n  by 
Lord  Shaftesbury,  will  usually  be  kicked  and  spurned  in  his  turn  ; 
and  accordingly  it  has  been  often  remarked,  that  the  Characteristics 
are  unjustly  neglected  in  our  days.  For  Lord  Shaftesbury,  with  all 
his  pedantry,  was  a  man  of  great  talents.  Leibnitz  had  the  sagacity 
to  see  this  through  the  mists  of  a  translation. 

Note  6.  Page  20. 
Perhaps"  the  most  bitter  political  enemy  of  Charles  I.  will  have 
the  candor  to  allow  that,  for  a  prince  of  those  times,  he  was  truly 
and  eminently  accomplished.  His  knowledge  of  the  arts  was  con- 
siderable ;  and,  as  a  patron  of  art,  he  stands  foremost  amongst  all 
British  sovereigns  to  this  hour.  He  said  truly  of  himself,  and 
wisely  as  to  the  principle,  that  he  understood  English  law  as  well 
as  a  gentleman  ought  to  understand  it ;  meaning  that  an  attorney's 
minute  ^knowledge  of  forms  and  technical  niceties  was  illiberal. 
Speaking  of  him  as  an  author,  we  must  remember  that  the  Eikon 
Basilike  is  still  unappropriated  ;  that  question  is  still  open.  But 
supposing  the  king's  claim  negatived,  still,  in  his  controversy  with 
Henderson,  in  his  negotiations  at  the  Isle  of  Wight  and  elsewhere, 
he  discovered  a  power  of  argument,  a  learning,  and  a  strength  of 
memory,  which  are  truly  admirable  ;  whilst  the  whole  of  his  accom- 
plishments are  recommended  by  a  modesty  and  a  humility  as  rare  as 
they  are  unaffected. 

Note  7.  Page  24. 
The  necessity  of  compression  obliges  us  to  omit  many  argu- 
ments and  references  by  which  we  could  demonstrate  the  fact,  that 
Shakspeare's  reputation  was  always  in  a  progressive  state  ;  allowing 
only  for  the  interruption  of  about  seventeen  years,  which  this  poet, 
in  common  with  all  others,  sustained,  not  so  much  from  the  state 
of  war,  (which  did  not  fully  occupy  four  of  those  years,)  as  from  the 
triumph  of  a  gloomy  fanaticism.  Deduct  the  twenty-three  years  of 
the  seventeenth  century,  which  had  elapsed  before  the  first  folio 
appeared,  to  this  space  add  seventeen  years  of  fanatical  madness, 
during  fourteen  of  which  all  dramatic  entertainments  were  sup- 


92 


SHAKSPEARE. 


pressed,  the  remainder  is  sixty  years.  And  surely  the  sale  of  four 
editions  of  a  vast  folio  in  that  space  of  time  was  an  expression  of 
an  abiding  interest.  No  other  poet,  except  Spenser,  continued  to  sell 
throughout  the  century.  Besides,  in  arguing  the  case  of  a  dramatic 
poet,  we  must  bear  in  mind,  that  although  readers  of  learned  books 
might  be  diffused  over  the  face  of  the  land,  the  readers  of  poetry 
would  be  chiefly  concentred  in  the  metropolis  ;  and  such  persons 
would  have  no  need  to  buy  what  they  heard  at  the  theatres.  But 
then  comes  the  question,  whether  Shakspeare  kept  possession  of  the 
theatres.  And  we  are  really  humiliated  by  the  gross  want  of  sense 
which  has  been  shown,  by  Malone  chiefly,  but  also  by  many  others, 
in  discussing  this  question.  From  the  Restoration  to  16S2,  says 
Malone,  no  more  than  four  plays  of  Shakspeare's  were  performed  by 
a  principal  company  in  London.  *  Such  was  the  lamentable  taste 
of  those  times,  that  the  plays  of  Fletcher,  Jonson,  and  Shirley,  were 
much  oftener  exhibited  than  those  of  our  author.'  What  cant  \^ 
this !  If  that  taste  were  *  lamentable,'  what  are  we  to  think 
of  our  own  times,  when  plays  a  thousand  times  below  those  of 
Fletcher,  or  even  of  Shirley,  continually  displace  Shakspeare? 
Shakspeare  would  himself  have  exulted  in  finding  that  he  gave  way 
only  to  dramatists  so  excellent.  And,  as  we  have  before  observed, 
both  then  and  now,  it  is  the  very  familiarity  with  Shakspeare,  which 
often  banishes  him  from  audiences  honestly  in  quest  of  relaxation 
and  amusement.  Novelty  is  the  very  soul  of  such  relaxation  ;  but 
in  our  closets,  when  we  are  not  unbending,  when  our  minds  are  in  a 
state  of  tension  from  intellectual  cravings,  then  it  is  that  we  resort 
to  Shakspeare  :  and  oftentimes  those  who  honor  him  most,  like  our- 
selves, are  the  most  impatient  of  seeing  his  divine  scenes  disfigured 
by  unequal  representation,  (good,  perhaps,  in  a  single  personation, 
bad  in  all  the  rest ;)  or  to  hear  his  divine  thoughts  mangled  in  the 
recitation  ;  or,  (which  is  worst  of  all,)  to  hear  them  dishonored  and 
defeated  by  imperfect  apprehension  in  the  audience,  or  by  defective 
sympathy.  Meantime,  if  one  theatre  played  only  four  of  Shak- 
speare's dramas,  another  played  at  least  seven.  But  the  grossest 
folly  of  Malone  is,  in  fancying  the  numerous  alterations  so  many 
insults  to  Shakspeare,  whereas  they  expressed  as  much  homage  to 
his  memory  as  if  the  unaltered  dramas  had  been  retained.  The 
substance  was  retained.  The  changes  were  merely  concessions  to 
the  changing  views  of  scenical  propriety  ;  sometimes,  no  doubt, 
made  with  a  simple  view  to  the  revolution  effected  by  Davenant  at 
Jie  Restoration,  in  bringing  scenes  (in  the  painter's  sense)  upon  the 
stage  :  sometimes  also  with  a  view  to  the  altered  fashions  of  the 


NOTES.  93 

audience  during  the  suspensions  of  the  action,  or  perhaps  to  the 
introduction  of  after-pieces,  by  which,  of  course,  the  time  was 
abridged  for  the  main  performance.  A  volume  might  be  written 
upon  this  subject.  Meantime  let  us  never  be  told,  that  a  poet  was 
losing,  or  had  lost  his  ground,  who  found  in  his  lowest  depression, 
amongst  his  almost  idolatrous  supporters,  a  great  king  distracted  by- 
civil  wars,  a  mighty  republican  poet  distracted  by  puritanical  fanati- 
cism, the  greatest  successor  by  far  of  that  great  poet,  a  papist  and  a 
bigoted  royalist,  and  finally,  the  leading  actor  of  the  century,  who 
gave  and  reflected  the  ruling  impulses  of  his  age. 

Note  8.  Page  25. 
One  of  the  profoundest  tests  by  which  we  can  measure  the  con- 
geniality of  an  author  with  the  national  genius  and  temper,  is  the 
degree  in  which  his  thoughts  or  his  phrases  interweave  themselves 
with  our  daily  conversation,  and  pass  into  the  currency  of  the 
language.  Feio  French  authors,  if  any,  have  imparted  one  phrase 
to  the  colloquial  idiom ;  with  respect  to  Shakspeare,  a  large  diction- 
ary might  be  made  of  such  phrases  as  '  win  golden  opinions,'  '  in 
my  mind's  eye,'  '  patience  on  a  monument,'  '  o'erstep  the  modesty 
of  nature,'  'more  honor'd  in  the  breach  than  in  the  observance,' 
'  palmy  state,*  '  my  poverty  and  not  my  will  consents,'  and  so  forth 
without  end.  This  reinforcement  of  the  general  language,  by  aids 
from  the  mintage  of  Shakspeare,  had  already  commenced  in  the 
seventeenth  century. 

Note  9.  Page  27. 
In  fact,  by  way  of  representing  to  himself  the  system  or  scheme 
of  the  English  roads,  the  reader  has  only  to  imagine  one  great  letter 
X,  or  a  St.  Andrew's  cross,  laid  down  from  north  to  south,  and 
decussating  at  Birmingham.  Even  Coventry,  which  makes  a  slight 
variation  for  one  or  two  roads,  and  so  far  disturbs  this  decussation 
by  shifting  it  eastwards,  is  still  in  Warwickshire. 

Note  10.    Page  33. 
And  probably  so  called  by  some  remote  ancestor  who  had  emi- 
grated from  the  forest  of  Ardennes,  in  the  Netherlands,  and  now  for 
ever  memorable  to  English  ears  from  its  proximity  to  Waterloo. 

Note  11.    Page  35. 
Let  not  the  reader  impute  to  us  the  gross  anachronism  of  makin"- 
an  estimate  for  Shakspeare's  days  in  a  coin  which  did  not  exist 


94  SHAKSPEARE. 

until  a  cenlurj-,  within  a  couple  of  3'ears,  after  Shakspeare's  birth, 
and  did  not  settle  to  the  value  of  twenty-one  shillings  until  a  century 
after  his  death.  The  nerve  of  such  an  anachronism  would  lie  in 
putting  the  estimate  into  a  mouth  of  that  age.  And  this  is  precisely 
ihe  blunder  into  which  the  foolish  forger  of  Vortigern,  &c.,  has 
fallen.  He  does  not  indeed  directly  mention  guineas  ;  but  indirectly 
and  virtually  he  does,  by  repeatedly  giving  us  accounts  imputed  to 
Shakspearian  contemporaries,  in  which  the  sum  total  amounts  to 
£5  5s. ;  or  to  £26  5s. ;  or,  again,  to  £l7  17s.  6d.  A  man  is  careful 
to  subscribe  £l4  14s,,  and  so  forth.  But  how  could  such  amounts 
have  arisen  unless  under  a  secret  reference  to  guineas,  which  were 
not  in  existence  until  Charles  II. 's  reign ;  and,  moreover,  to  guineas 
at  their  final  settlement  by  law  into  twenty-one  shillings  each,  which 
did  not  take  place  until  George  T.'s  reign  ? 

Note  12.    Page  35. 
Thomas  Campbell,  the  poet,  in  his  eloquent  Remarks  on  the  Life 
and  Writings  of  William  Shakspeare,  prefixed  to  a  popular  edition 
of  the  poet's  dramatic  works.    London,  1838. 

.  Note  13.  Page  36. 
After  all  the  assistance  given  to  such  equations  between  different 
times  or  different  places  by  Sir  George  Shuckborough's  tables,  and 
other  similar  investigations,  it  is  still  a  very  difficult  problem,  com- 
plex, and,  after  all,  merely  tentative  in  the  results,  to  assign  the  true 
value  in  such  cases  ;  not  only  for  the  obvious  reason,  that  the  powers 
of  money  have  varied  in  different  directions  with  regard  to  different 
objects,  and  in  different  degrees  where  the  direction  has  on  the  whole 
continued  the  same,  but  because  the  very  objects  to  be  taken  into 
computation  are  so  indeterminate,  and  vary  so  much,  not  only  as 
regards  century  and  century,  kingdom  and  kingdom,  but' also,  even 
in  the  same  century  and  the  same  kingdom,  as  regards  rank  and 
rank.  That  which  is  a  mere  necessary  to  one,  is  a  luxurious  super- 
fluity to  another.  And,  in  order  to  ascertain  these  differences,  it  is 
au  indispensable  qualification  to  have  studied  the  habits  and  customs 
of  the  several  classes  concerned,  together  with  the  variations  of 
those  habits  and  customs. 

Note  14.    Page  45. 
Never  was  the   esse  quam  videri  in  any  point  more  strongly  dis- 
criminated than  in  this  very  point  of  gallantry  to  the  female  sex,  as 
between  England  and  France.    In  France,  the  verbal  homage'  to 


NOTES. 

woman  is  so  excessive  as  to  betray  its  real  purpose,  viz.,  that  it  is  a 
mask  for  secret  contempt.  In  England,  little  is  said;  but,  in  the 
mean  time,  we  allow  our  sovereign  ruler  to  be  a  woman  ;  which  in 
Prance  is  impossible.  Even  that  fact  is  of  some  importance,  but 
less  so  than  what  follows.  In  every  country  whatsoever,  if  any 
principle  has  a  deep  root  in  the  moral  feelings  of  the  people,  we 
may  rely  upon  its  showing  itself,  by  a  thousand  evidences  amongst 
the  very  lowest  ranks,  and  in  their  daily  intercourse,  and  their 
undress  manners.  Now  in  England  there  is,  and  always  has  been, 
a  manly  feeling,  most  widely  diffused,  of  unwillingness  to  see  labors 
of  a  coarse  order,  or  requiring  muscular  exertions,  thrown  upon 
women.  Pauperism,  amongst  other  evil  effects,  has  sometimes 
locally  disturbed  this  predominating  sentiment  of  Englishmen;  but 
never  at  any  time  with  such  depth  as  to  kill  the  root  of  the  old 
hereditary  manliness.  Sometimes  at  this  day,  a  gentleman,  either 
from  carelessness,  or  from  overruling  force  of  convenience,  or  from 
real  defect  of  gallantry,  will  allow  a  female  servant  to  carry  his 
portmanteau  for  him  ;  though,  after  all,  that  spectacle  is  a  rare  one. 
And  every  where  women  of  all  ages  engage  in  the  pleasant,  nay 
elegant,  labors  of  the  hay  field ;  but  in  Great  Britain  women  are 
never  suffered  to  mow,  which  is  a  most  athletic  and  exhausting 
labor,  nor  to  load  a  cart,  nor  to  drive  a  plough  or  hold  it.  In  France, 
on  the  other  hand,  before  the  Revolution,  (at  which  period  the 
pseudo-homage,  the  lip-honor,  was  far  more  ostentatiously  professed 
towards  the  female  sex  than  at  present,)  a  Frenchman  of  credit,  and 
vouching  for  his  statement  by  the  whole  weight  of  his  name  and 
personal  responsibility,  (M.  Simond,  now  an  American  citizen,) 
records  the  following  abominable  scene  as  one  of  no  uncommon 
occurrence.  A  woman  was  in  some  provinces  yoked  side  by  side 
'  with  an  ass  to  the  plough  or  the  harrow  ;  and  M.  Simond  protests 
that  it  excited  no  horror  to  see  the  driver  distributing  his  lashes  im- 
partially between  the  woman  and  her  brute  yoke-fellow.  So  much 
for  the  wordy  pomps  of  French  gallantry.  In  England,  we  trust, 
and  we  believe,  that  any  man  caught  in  such  a  situation,  and  in  such 
an  abuse  of  his  power,  (supposing  the  case,  otherwise"  a  possible 
one,)  would  be  killed  on  the  spot. 

Note  15.    Page  47. 

Amongst  people  of  humble  rank  in  England,  who  only  were  ever 

asked  in  church,  until  the  new-fangled  systems  of  marriage  came  up 

within  the  last  ten  or  fifteen  years,  during  the  currency  of  the  three 

Sundays  on  which  the  banns  were  proclaimed  by  the  clergyman  from 


96  SHAKSPEARE. 

the  reading  desk,  the  young  couple  elect  were  said  jocosely  to  be 
*  hanging  in  the  bell-ropes  ; '  alluding  perhaps  to  the  joyous  peal 
contingent  on  the  final  completion  of  the  marriage. 

Note  16.  Page  59. 
In  a  little  memoir  of  Milton,  which  the  author  of  this  article  drew 
up  some  years  ago  for  a  public  society,  and  which  is  printed  in  aa 
abridged  shape,  he  took  occasion  to  remark,  that  Dr.  Johnson,  who 
was  meanly  anxious  to  revive  this  slander  against  Milton,  as  well  as 
some  others,  had  supposed  Milton  himself  to  have  this  flagellation 
in  his  mind,  and  indirectly  to  confess  it,  in  one  of  his  Latin  poems,, 
where,  speaking  of  Cambridge,  and  declaring  that  he  has  no  longer 
any  pleasure  in  the  thoughts  of  revisiting  that  university,  he  says, 

'  Nee  duri  libet  usque  minas  preferre  maestri, 
Caeteraque  ingenio  non  subeunda  meo.' 

This  last  line  the  malicious  critic  would  translate  — '  And  other 
things  insufferable  to  a  man  of  my  temper.'  But,  as  we  then 
observed,  ingenium  is  properly  expressive  of  the  intellectual  consti- 
tution, whilst  it  is  the  moral  constitution  that  suffers  degradation 
from  personal  chastisement  —  the  sense  of  honor,  of  personal 
dignity,  of  justice,  &c.  Indoles  is  the  proper  term  for  this  latter 
idea  ;  and  in  using  the  word  ingenium,  there  cannot  be  a  doubt  thai 
Milton  alluded  to  the  dry  scholastic  disputations,  which  were  shock 
ing  and  odious  to  his  fine  poetical  genius.  If,  therefore,  the  vile 
story  is  still  to  be  kept  up  in  order  to  dishonor  a  great  man,  at  any 
rate  let  it  not  in  future  be  pretended  that  any  countenance  to  such  a 
slander  can  be  drawn  from  the  confessions  of  the  poet  himself. 

Note  17.  Page  68. 
And  singular  enough  it  is,  as  well  as  interesting,  that  Shakspeare 
had  so  entirely  superseded  to  his  own  ear  and  memory  the  name 
Hamnet  by  the  dramatic  name  of  Hamlet,  that  in  writing  his  will, 
he  actually  misspells  the  name  of  his  friend  Sadler,  and  calls  him 
Hamlet.  His  son,  however,  who  should  have  familiarized  the  true 
name  to  his  ear,  had  then  been  dead  for  twenty  years. 

Note  IS.    Page  72. 

*  I  have  heard  that   Mr.  Shakspeare  was  a  natural  wit,  without 

any  art  at  all,    Hee  frequented  the  plays  all  his  younger  time,  but  in 

his  elder  days  lived  at  Startford,  and  supplied  the  stage  with  two 

plays  every  year,  and  for  itt  had  an  allowance  so  large,  that  he  spent 


NOTES.  97 

at  the  rate  of  1,000Z.  a  year,  as  I  have  heard.  Shakespeare,  Dray- 
ton, and  Ben  Jonson,  had  a  merie  meeting,  and  it  seems  drank  too 
hard,  for  Shakespear  died  of  a  feavour  there  contracted.'  (Diary  of 
the  Rev.  John  Ward,  A.  M.,  Vicar  of  Stratford-upon-Avon,  extend- 
ing from  1648  to  1679,  p.  183.     Lond.  1839,  8vo.) 

Note  19.  Page  72. 
It  is  naturally  to  be  supposed  that  Dr.  Hall  would  attend  the  sick 
bed  of  his  father-in-law  ;  and  the  discovery  of  this  gentleman's 
medical  diary  promised  some  gratification  to  our  curiosity  as  to  the 
cause  of  Shakspeare's  death.  Unfortunately,  it  does  not  commence 
until  the  year  1617. 

Note  20.  Page  73. 
An  exception  ought  perhaps  to  be  made  for  Sir  Walter  Scott  and 
for  Cervantes  ;  but  with  regard  to  all  other  writers,  Dante,  suppose, 
or  Ariosto  amongst  Italians,  Camoens  amongst  those  of  Portugal, 
Schiller  amongst  Germans,  however  ably  they  may  have  been 
naturalized  in  foreign  languages,  as  all  of  those  here  mentioned 
(excepting  only  Ariosto)  have  in  one  part  of  their  works  been  most 
powerfully  naturalized  in  English,  it  still  remains  true,  (and  the 
very  sale  of  the  books  is  proof  sufficient,)  that  an  alien  author  never 
does  take  root  in  the  general  sympathies  out  of  his  own  country  ; 
he  takes  his  station  in  libraries,  he  is  read  by  the  man  of  learned 
leisure,  he  is  known  and  valued  by  the  refined  and  the  elegant,  but 
he  is  not  (what  Shakspeare  is  for  Germany  and  America)  in  any 
proper  sense  a  popular  favorite. 

Note  21.  Page  74. 
It  will  occur  to  many  readers,  that  perhaps  Homer  may  furnish 
the  sole  exception  to  this  sweeping  assertion.  Any  hut  Homer  is 
clearly  and  ludicrously  below  the  level  of  the  competition  ;  but  even 
Homer,  '  with  his  tail  on,'  (as  the  Scottish  Highlanders  say  of 
their  chieftains  when  belted  by  their  ceremonial  retinues,)  musters 
nothing  like  the  force  which  already  follows  Shakspeare  ;  and  be  it 
remembered,  that  Homer  sleeps  and  has  long  slept  as  a  subject  of 
criticism  or  commentary,  while  in  Germany  as  well  as  England, 
and  now  even  in  France,  the  gathering  of  wits  to  the  vast  equipage 
of  Shakspeare  is  advancing  in  an  accelerated  ratio.  There  is,  in 
fact,  a  great  delusion  current  upon  this  subject.  Innumerable  refer- 
ences to  Homer,  and  brief  critical  remarks  on  this  or  that  pretension 
of  Homer,  this  or  that  scene,  this  or  that  passage,  lie  scattered  over 
7 


98  SHAKSPEARE. 

literature  ancient  and  modern  ;  but  the  express  works  dedicated  to 
the  separate  service  of  Homer  are,  after  all,  not  many.  In  Greek 
we  have  only  the  large  Commentary  of  Eusialhius,  and  the  Scholia 
of  DidymuSj  &c. ;  in  French  little  or  nothing  before  the  prose  trans- 
lation of  the  seventeenth  century,  which  Pope  esteemed  '  elegant,' 
and  the  skirmishings  of  Madame  Dacier,  La  Motte,  &c. ;  in  English, 
besides  the  various  translations  and  their  prefaces,  (which,  by  the 
way,  began  as  early  as  1555,)  nothing  of  much  importance  until  the 
elaborate  preface  of  Pope  to  the  Iliad,  and  his  elaborate  postscript 
to  the  Odyssey — nothing  certainly  before  that,  and  very  little  indeed 
since  that,  except  Wood's  Essay  on  the  Life  and  Genius  of  Homer. 
On  the  other  hand,  of  the  books  written  in  illustration  or  investiga- 
tion of  Shakspeare,  a  very  considerable  library  might  be  formed  in 
England,  and  another  in  Germany. 

Note  22.  Page  76. 
Apartment  is  here  used,  as  the  reader  will  observe,  in  its  true  and 
continental  acceptation,  as  a  division  or  compartment  of  a  house 
including  many  rooms  ;  a  suite  of  chambers,  but  a  suite  which  is 
partitioned  off,  (as  in  palaces,)  not  a  single  chamber;  a  sense  so 
commonly  and  so  erroneously  given  to  this  word  in  England. 

Note  23.  Page  78. 
And  hence,  by  parity  of  reason,  under  the  opposite  circumstances, 
under  the  circumstances  which,  instead  of  abolishing,  most  emphati- 
cally drew  forth  the  sexual  distinctions,  viz.,  in  the  comic  aspects  of 
social  intercourse,  the  reason  that  we  see  no  women  on  the  Greek 
stage  ;  the  Greek  Coffiedy,  unless  when  it  affects  the  extravagant 
fun  of  farce,  rejects  women. 

Note  24.  Page  81. 
It  may  be  thought,  however,  by  some  readers,  that  ^schylus,  in 
his  fine  phantom  of  Darius,  has  approached  the  English  ghost.  As 
a  foreign  ghost,  we  would  wish  (and  we  are  sure  that  our  excellent 
readers  would  wish)  to  show  every  courtesy  and  attention  to  this 
apparition  of  Darius.  It  has  the  advantage  of  being  royal,  an 
advantage  which  it  shares  with  the  ghost  of  the  royal  Dane.  Yet 
how  different,  how  removed  by  a  total  world,  from  that  or  any  of 
Shakspeare's  ghosts !  Take  that  of  Banquo,  for  instance.  How 
shadowy,  how  unreal,  yet  how  real !  Darius  is  a  mere  state  ghost 
—  a  diplomatic  ghost.  But  Banquo  — he  exists  only  for  Macbeth  ; 
the  guests  do  not  see  him,  yet  how  solemn,  how  real,  how  heart- 
searching  he  is. 


NOTES.  99 

Note  25.  Page  83. 
Caliban  has  not  yet  been  thoroughly  fathomed.  For  all  Shak- 
speare's  great  creations  are  like  works  of  nature,  subjects  of  inex- 
haustible study.  It  was  this  character  of  whom  Charles  I.  and 
some  of  his  ministers  expressed  such  fervent  admiration  ;  and, 
among  other  circumstances,  most  justly  they  admired  the  new 
language  almost  with  which  he  is  endowed,  for  the  purpose  of 
expressing  his  fiendish  and  yet  carnal  thoughts  of  hatred  to  his 
master.  Caliban  is  evidently  not  meant  for  scorn,  but  for  abomina- 
tion mixed  with  fear  and  partial  respect.  He  is  purposely  brought 
into  contrast  with  the  drunken  Trinculo  and  Stephano,  with  an 
advantageous  result.  He  is  much  more  intellectual  than  either, 
uses  a  more  elevated  language,  not  disfigured  by  vulgarisms,  and  is 
not  liable  to  the  low  passion  for  plunder  as  they  are.  He  is  mortal, 
doubtless,  as  his  *  dam  '  (for  Shakspeare  will  not  call  her  mother) 
Sycorax.  But  he  inherits  from  her  such  qualities  of  power  as  a 
witch  could  be  supposed  to  bequeath.  He  trembles  indeed  before 
Prospero ;  but  that  is  as  we  are  to  understand,  through  the  moral 
superiority  of  Prospero  in  Christian  wisdom ;  for  when  he  finds 
himself  in  the  presence  of  dissolute  and  unprincipled  men,  he  rises 
at  once  into  the  dignity  of  intellectual  power. 


\jb 


POPE. 


Alexander  Pope,  the  most  brilliant  of  all  wits  who 
have  at  any  period  applied  themselves  to  the  poetic 
treatment  of  human  manners,  to  the  selecting  from  the 
play  of  human  character  what  is  picturesque,  or  the 
arresting  what  is  fugitive,  was  born  in  the  city  of 
London  On  the  21st  ^  day  of  May,  in  the  memorable 
year  1688  ;  about  six  months,  therefore,  before  the 
landing  of  the  Prince  of  Orange,  and  the  opening  of 
the  great  revolution  which  gave  the  final  ratification  to 
all  previous  revolutions  of  that  tempestuous  century. 
By  the  '  city '  of  London  the  reader  is  to  understand 
us  as  speaking  with  technical  accuracy  of  that  district, 
which  lies  within  the  ancient  walls  and  the  jurisdiction 
of  the  lord  mayor.  The  parents  of  Pope,  there  is 
good  reason  to  think,  were  of  *  gentle  blood,'  which  is 
the  expression  of  the  poet  himself  when  describing 
them  inverse.  His  mother  was  so  undoubtedly;  and 
her  illustrious  son,  in  speaking  of  her  to  Lord  Harvey, 
at  a  time  when  any  exaggeration  was  open  to  an  easy 


102  POPE. 

refutation,  and  writing  in  a  spirit  most  likely  to  provoke 
it,  does  not  scruple  to  say,  with  a  tone  of  dignified 
hauorhtiness  not  unbecoming  the  situation  of  a  filial 
champion  on  behalf  of  an  insulted  mother,  that  by 
birth  and  descent  she  was  not  below  that  young  lady, 
(one  of  the  two  beautiful  Miss  Lepels,)  whom  his 
lordship  had  selected  from  all  the  choir  of  court  beau- 
ties as  the  future  mother  of  his  children.  Of  Pope's 
extraction  and  immediate  lineage  for  a  space  of  two 
generations  we  know  enough.  Beyond  that  we  know 
little.  Of  this  little  a  part  is  dubious ;  and  what  we 
are  disposed  to  receive  as  not  dubious,  rests  chiefly  on 
his  own  authority.  In  the  prologue  to  his  Satires, 
having  occasion  to  notice  the  lampooners  of  the  times, 
who  had  represented  his  father  as  '  a  mechanic,  a 
hatter,  a  farmer,  nay  a  bankrupt,'  he  feels  himself 
called  upon  to  state  the  truth  about  his  parents ;  and 
naturally  much  more  so  at  a  time  when  the  low  scur- 
rilities of  these  obscure  libellers  had  been  adopted, 
accredited,  and  diffused  by  persons  so  distinguished  in 
all  points  of  personal  accomplishment  and  rank  as 
Lady  Mary  Wortley  Montagu  and  Lord  Harvey  : 
'  hard  as  thy  heart,''  was  one  of  the  lines  in  their  joint 
pasquinade,  ''hard  as  thy  heart,  and -as  thy  hirth 
ohscure.'*  Accordingly  he  makes  the  following  formal 
statement :  '  Mr.  Pope's  father  was  of  a  gentleman's 
family  in  Oxfordshire,  the  head  of  which  was  the  Earl 
of  Downe.  His  mother  was  the  daughter  of  William 
Turner,  Esq.,  of  York.  She  had  three  brothers,  one 
of  whom  was  killed ;  another  died  in  the  service  of 
King  Charles  [meaning  Charles  L]  ;  the  eldest,  follow- 
ing his  fortunes,  and  becoming  a  general  officer  in 


POPE.  103 

Spain,  left  her  what  estate  remained  after  the  seques- 
trations and  forfeitures  of  her  family.'  The  seques- 
trations here  spoken  of  were  those  inflicted  by  the 
commissioners  for  the  parliament ;  and  usually  they 
levied  a  fifth,  or  even  two  fifths,  according  to  the 
apparent  delinquency  of  the  parties.  But  in  such  cases 
two  great  difierences  arose  in  the  treatment  of  the 
royalists  ;  first,  that  the  report  was  colored  according 
to  the  interest  which  a  man  possessed,  or  other  private 
means  for  biassing  the  commissioners  ;  secondly,  that 
often,  when  money  could  not  be  raised  on  mortgage  to 
meet  the  sequestration,  it  became  necessary  to  sell  a 
family  estate  suddenly,  and  therefore  in  those  times  at 
great  loss  ;  so  that  a  nominal  fifth  might  be  depressed 
by  favor  to  a  tenth,  or  raised  by  the  necessity  of  sell- 
ing to  a  half.  And  hence  might  arise  the  small  dowry 
of  Mrs.  Pope,  notwithstanding  the  family  estate  in 
Yorkshire  had  centred  in  her  person.  But,  by  the 
way,  we  see  from  the  fact  of  the  eldest  brother  having 
sought  service  in  Spain,  that  Mrs.  Pope  was  a  Papist ; 
not,  like  her  husband,  by  conversion,  but  by  hereditary 
faith.  This  account,  as  publicly  thrown  out  in  the  way 
of  challenge  by  Pope,  was,  however,  sneered  at  by  a 
certain  Mr.  Pottinger  of  those  days,  who,  together  with . 
his  absurd  name,  has  been  safely  transmitted  to  pos- 
terity m  connection  with  this  single  feat  of  having 
contradicted  Alexander  Pope.  We  read  in  a  diary 
published  by  the  Microcosm,  '  Met  a  large  hat,  with  a 
man  under  it.''  And  so,  here,  we  cannot  so  properly 
say  that  Mr.  Pottinger  brings  down  the  contradiction  to 
our  times,  as  that  the  contradiction  brings  down  Mr. 
Pottinger.     'Cousin  Pope,' said  Pottinger, 'had  made 


104  POPE. 

himself  out  a  fine  pedigree,  but  he  wondered  where  he 
got  it.'  And  he  then  goes  on  to  plead  in  abatement  of 
Pope's  pretensions,  '  that  an  old  maiden  aunt,  equally- 
related,'  (that  is,  standing  in  the  same  relation  to  him- 
self and  to  the  poet,)  *  a  great  genealogist,  who  was 
always  talking  of  her  family,  never  mentioned  this 
circumstance.'  And  again  we  are  told,  from  another 
quarter,  that  the  Earl  of  Guildford,  after  express  inves- 
tigation of  this  matter,  '  was  sure  that,'  amongst  the 
descendants  of  the  Earls  of  Downe,  *  there  was  none 
of  the  name  of  Pope.'  How  it  was  that  Lord  Guild- 
ford came  to  have  any  connection  with  the  affair,  is  not 
stated  by  the  biographers  of  Pope ;  but  we  have  ascer- 
tained that,  by  marriage  with  a  female  decendant  ^from 
the  Earls  of  Downe,  he  had  come  into  possession  of 
their  English  estates. 

Finally,  though  it  is  rather  for  the  honor  of  the  Earls 
of  Downe  than  of  Pope  to  make  out  the  connection, 
we  must  observe  that  Lord  Guildford's  testimony,  if 
ever  given  at  all,  is  simply  negative  ;  he  had  found  no 
proofs  of  the  connection,  but  he  had  not  found  any 
proofs  to  destroy  it ;  whilst,  on  the  other  hand,  it  ought 
to  be  mentioned,  though  unaccountably  overlooked  by 
all  previous  biographers,  that  one  of  Pope's  anonymous 
enemies,  who  hated  him  personally,  but  was  apparently 
master  of  his  family  history,  and  too  honorable  to  belie 
his  own  convictions,  expressly  affirms  of  his  own 
authority,  and  without  reference  to  any  claim  put 
forward  by  Pope,  that  he  was  descended  from  a  junior 
branch  of  the  Downe  family.  Which  testimony  has  a 
double  value  ;  first  as  corroborating  the  probability  of 
Pope's  statement  viewed  in  the  light  of  a  fact;  and. 


POPE.  105 

secondly,  as  corroborating  that  same  statement  viewed 
in  the  light  of  a  current  story,  true  or  false,  and  not  as 
a  disingenuous  fiction  put  forward  by  Pope  to  confute 
Lord  Harvey. 

It  is  probable  to  us,  that  the  Popes,  who  had  been 
originally  transplanted  from  England  to  Ireland,  had  in 
the  person  of  some  cadet  been  re -transplanted  to  Eng- 
land ;  and  that  having  in  that  way  been  disconnected 
from  all  personal  recognition,  and  all  local  memorials 
of  the  capital  house,  by  this  sort  of  postliminium^  the 
junior  branch  had  ceased  to  cherish  the  honor  of  a 
descent  which  had  now  divided  from  all  direct  advan- 
tage. At  all  events,  the  researches  of  Pope's  biogra- 
phers have  not  been  able  to  trace  him  farther  back  in 
the  paternal  line  than  to  his  grandfather;  and  he 
(which  is  odd  enough,  considering  the  popery  of  his 
descendants)  was  a  clergyman  of  the  established 
church  in  Hampshire.  This  grandfather  had  two  sons. 
Of  the  eldest  nothing  is  recorded  beyond  the  three 
facts,  that  he  went  to  Oxford,  that  he  died  there,  and 
that  he  spent  the  family  estate.^  The  younger  son, 
whose  name  was  Alexander,  had  been  sent  when 
young,  in  some  commercial  character,  to  Lisbon ;  3 
and  there  it  was,  in  that  centre  of  bigotry,  that  he 
became  a  sincere  and  most  disinterested  Catholic.  He 
returned  to  England  ;  married  a  Catholic  young  widow ; 
and  became  the  father  of  a  second  Alexander  Pope, 
ultra  Sauromatas  notus  et  Antipodes. 

By  his  own  account  to  Spence,  Pope  learned  '  very 
early  to  read ; '  and  writing  he  taught  himself  '  by 
copying  from  printed  books;'  all  which  seems  to 
argue,  that  as  an  only  child,  with  an  indolent  father 


106  POPE. 

and  a  most  indulgent  mother,  he  was  not  molested  with 
much  schooling  in  his  infancy.  Only  one  adventure  is 
recorded  of  his  childhood,  viz.,  that  he  was  attacked 
by  a  cow,  thrown  down,  and  wounded  in  the  throat. 

Pope  escaped  this  disagreeable  kind  of  vaccination 
without  serious  injury,  and  was  not  farther  tormented 
by  cows  or  schoolmasters  until  he  was  about  eight 
years  old,  when  the  family  priest,  that  is,  we  presume, 
the  confessor  of  his  parents,  taught  him,  agreeably  to 
the  Jesuit  system,  the  rudiments  of  Greek  and  Latin 
concurrently.  This  priest  was  named  Banister ;  and  his 
name  is  frequently  employed,  together  with  other  ficti- 
tious names,  by  way  of  signature  to  the  notes  in  the 
Dunciad,  an  artifice  which  was  adopted  for  the  sake  of 
giving  a  characteristic  variety  to  the  notes,  according 
to  the  tone  required  for  the  illustration  of  the  text. 
From  his  tuition  Pope  was  at  length  dismissed  to  a 
Catholic  school  at  Twyford,  near  Winchester.  The 
selection  of  a  school  in  this  neighborhood,  though 
certainly  the  choice  of  a  Catholic  family  was  much 
limited,  points  apparently  to  the  old  Hampshire  con- 
nection of  his  father.  Here  an  incident  occurred 
which  most  powerfully  illustrates  the  original  and  con- 
stitutional determination  to  satire  of  this  irritable  poet. 
He  knew  himself  so  accurately,  that  in  after  times, 
half  by  way  of  boast,  half  of  confession,  he  says, 

'  But  touch  me,  and  no  Minister  so  sore  : 
Whoe'er  offends,  at  some  unlucky  time 
Slides  into  verse  and  hitches  in  a  rhyme. 
Sacred  to  ridicule  his  whole  life  long, 
And  the  sad  burthen  of  some  merry  song.' 

Already,  it  seems,  in  childhood  he  had  the  same 


POPE.  107 

irresistible  instinct,  victorious  over  the  strongest  sense 
of  personal  danger.  He  wrote  a  bitter  satire  upon  the 
presiding  pedagogue,  was  brutally  punished  for  this 
youthful  indiscretion,  and  indignantly  removed  by  his 
parents  from  the  school.  Mr.  Roscoe  speaks  of  Pope's 
personal  experience  as  necessarily  unfavorable  to  pub- 
lic schools ;  but  in  reality  he  knew  nothing  of  public 
schools.  All  the  establishments  tor  Papists  were 
narrow,  and  suited  to  their  political  depression;  and 
his  parents  were  too  sincerely  anxious  for  their  son's 
religious  principles  to  risk  the  contagion  of  Protestant 
association  by  sending  him  elsewhere. 

From  the  scene  ^  of  his  disgrace  and  illiberal  punish- 
ment, he  passed,  according  to  the  received  accounts, 
under  the  tuition  of  several  other  masters  in  rapid 
succession.  But  it  is  the  less  necessary  to  trouble  the 
reader  with  their  names,  as  Pope  himself  assures  us, 
that  he  learned  nothing  from  any  of  them.  To 
Banister  he  had  been  indebted  for  such  trivial  elements 
of  a  schoolboy's  learning  as  he  possessed  at  all, 
excepting  those  which  he  had  taught  himself.  And 
upon  himself  it  was,  and  his  own  admirable  faculties, 
that  he  was  now  finally  thrown  for  the  rest  of  his 
education,  at  an  age  so  immature  that  many  boys  are 
then  first  entering  their  academic  career.  Pope  is 
supposed  to  have  been  scarcely  twelve  years  old  when 
he  assumed  the  office  of  self-tuition,  and  bade  farewell 
for  ever  to  schools  and  tutors. 

Such  a  phenomenon  is  at  any  rate  striking.  It  is 
the  more  so,  under  the  circumstances  which  attended 
the  plan,  and  under  the  results  which  justified  its  exe- 
cution.    It  seems,  as   regards  the  plan,   hardly  less 


108  POPE. 

strange  that  prudent  parents  should  have  acquiesced 
in  a  scheme  of  so  much  peril  to  his  intellectual  inter- 
ests, than  that  the  son,  as  regards  the  execution,  should 
have  justified  their  confidence  by  his  final  success. 
More  especially  this  confidence  surprises  us  in  the 
father.  A  doating  mother  might  shut  her  eyes  to  all 
remote  evils  in  the  present  gratification  to  her  affec- 
tions; but  Pope's  father  was  a  man  of  sense  and 
principle ;  he  must  have  weighed  the  risks  besetting  a 
boy  left  to  his  own  intellectual  guidance  ;  and  to  these 
risks  he  would  allow  the  more  weight  from  his  own 
conscious  defect  of  scholarship  and  inability  to  guide 
or  even  to  accompany  his  son's  studies.  He  could 
neither  direct  the  proper  choice  of  studies ;  nor  in  any 
one  study  taken  separately  could  he  suggest  the  proper 
choice  of  books. 

The  case  we  apprehend  to  have  been  this.  Alexan- 
der Pope,  the  elder,  was  a  man  of  philosophical  desires 
and  unambitious  character.  Quiet  and  seclusion  and 
innocence  of  life,  —  these  were  what  he  affected  for 
himself;  and  that  which  had  been  founa  available  for 
his  own  happiness,  he  might  reasonably  wish  for  his 
son.  The  two  hinges  upon  which  his  plans  may  be 
supposed  to  have  turned,  were,  first,  the  political 
degradation  of  his  sect ;  and,  secondly,  the  fact  that 
his  son  was  an  only  child.  Had  he  been  a  Protestant, 
or  had  he,  though  a  Papist,  been  burthened  with  a 
large  family  of  children,  he  would  doubtless  have 
pursued  a  different  course.  But  to  him,  and,  as  he 
sincerely  hoped,  to  his  son,  the  strife  after  civil  honors 
was  sternly  barred.  Apostasy  only  could  lay  it  open. 
And,  as  the  sentiments  of  honor  and  duty  in  this  point 


fell  in  with  the  vices  of  his  temfrel^^ti'  higR,  frtit 
pie  concurring  with  his  constitutional  ToVSTJf^ase,  we 
need  not  wonder  that  he  should  early  retire  from  com- 
merce with  a  very  moderate  competence,  or  that  he 
should  suppose  the  same  fortune  sufficient  for  one  who 
was  to  stand  in  the  same  position.  This  son  was  from 
his  birth  deformed.  That  made  it  probable  that  he 
might  not  marry.  If  he  should,  and  happened  to  have 
children,  a  small  family  would  find  an  adequate  pro- 
vision in  the  patrimonial  funds ;  and  a  large  one  at  the 
worst  could  only  throw  him  upon  the  same  commercial 
exertions  to  which  he  had  been  obliged  himself.  The 
Roman  Catholics,  indeed, 'were  just  then  situated  as  our 
modern  Quakers  are.  I  Law  to  the  one,  as  conscience 
to  the  other,  closed  all  modes  of  active  employment 
except  that  of  commercial  industry.  I  Either  his  son, 
therefore,  would  be  a  rustic  recluse,  or,  lik«  himself, 
he  would  be  a  merchant.  ( 

I  With  such  prospects,  what  need  of  an  elaborate 
education  ?  And  where  was  such  an  education  to  be 
sought  ?  At  the  petty  establishments  of  the  suffering 
Catholics,  the  instruction,  as  he  had  found  experimen- 
tally, was  poor.  At  the  great  national  establishments 
his  son  would  be  a  degraded  person ;  one  who  was 
permanently  repelled  from  every  arena  of  honor,  and 
sometimes,  as  in  cases  of  public  danger,  was  banished 
from  the  capital,  deprived  of  his  house,  left  defenceless 
against  common  ruffians,  and  rendered  liable  to  the 
control  of  every  village  magistrate.  To  one  in  these 
circumstances  solitude  was  the  wisest  position,  and  the 
best  qualification  for  that  was  an  education  that  would 
furnish  aids  to  solitary  thought.     No  need  for  brilliant 


1 10  POPE. 

accomplishments  to  him  who  must  never  display  them  : 
forensic  arts,  pulpit  erudition,  senatorial  eloquence, 
academical  accomplishments  —  these  would  be  lost  to 
one  against  whom  the  courts,  th^  pulpit,  the  senate,  the 
universities,  were  closed.  |  Nay,  by  possibility  worse 
than  lost ;  they  might  prove  so  many  snares  or  positive 
bribes  to  apostasy.  Plain  English,  therefore,  and  the 
high  thinking  of  his  compatriot  authors,  might  prove 
the  best  provision  for  the  mind  of  an  English  Papist 
destined  to  seclusion. 

Such  are  the  considerations  under  which  we  read 
and  interpret  the  conduct  of  Pope's  parents ;  and  they 
lead  us  to  regard  as  wise  an3  conscientious  a  scheme 
which,  under  ordinary  circumstances,  would  have  been 
pitiably  foolish.  And  be  it  remembered,  that  to  these 
considerations,  derived  exclusively  from  the  civil  cir- 
cumstances of  the  family,  were  superadded  others 
derived  from  the  astonishing  prematurity  of  the  indi- 
vidual. That  boy  who  could  write  at  twelve  years  of 
age  the  beautiful  and  touching  stanzas  on  Solitude, 
might  well  be  trusted  with  the  superintendence  of  his 
own  studies.  And  the  stripling  of  sixteen,  who  could 
so  far  transcend  in  good  sense  the  accomplished  states- 
men or  men  of  the  world  with  whom  he  afterwards 
corresponded,  might  challenge  confidence  for  such  a 
choice  of  books  as  would  best  promote  the  develop- 
ment of  his  own  faculties. 

In  reality,  one  so  finely  endowed  as  Alexander  Pope, 
could  not  easily  lose  his  way  in  the  most  extensive  or 
ill-digested  library.  And  though  he  tells  Atterbmy, 
that  at  one  time  he  abused  his  opportunities  by  reading 
controversial  divinity,  we  may  be  sure  that   his  own 


POPE.  Ill 

native  activities,  and  the  elasticity  of  his  mind,  would 
speedily  recoil  into  a  just  equilibrium  of  study,  under 
wider  and  happier  opportunities.  Reading,  indeed,  for 
a  person  like  Pope,  is  rather  valuable  as  a  means  of 
exciting  his  own  energies  and  of  feeding  his  own 
sensibilities,  than  for  any  direct  acquisitions  of  know- 
ledge, or  for  any  trains  of  systematic  research.  All 
men  are  destined  to  devour  much  rubbish  between  the 
cradle  and  the  grave ;  and  doubtless  the  man  who  is 
wisest  in  the  choice  of  his  books,  will  have  read  many 
a  page  before  he  dies,  that  a  thoughtful  review  would 
pronounce  worthless.  This  is  the  fate  of  all  men. 
But  the  reading  of  Pope,  as  a  general  result  or  mea- 
sure of  his  judicious  choice,  is  best  justified  in  his 
writings.  They  show  him  well  furnished  with  what" 
soever  he  wanted  for  matter  or  for  embellishment,  for 
argument  or  illustration,  for  example  and  model,  or  for 
direct  and  explicit  imitation. 

Possibly,  as  we  have  already  suggested,  within  the 
range  of  English  literature  Pope  might  have  found  all 
that  he  wanted.  But  variety  the  widest  has  its  uses;  \ 
and,  for  the  extension  of  his  influence  with  the  polished 
classes  amongst  whom  he  lived,  he  did  wisely  to  add 
other  languages ;  and  a  question  has  thus  arisen  with 
regard  to  the  extent  of  Pope's  attainments  as  a  self- 
taught  linguist.  A  man,  or  even  a  boy,  of  great 
originality,  may  happen  to  succeed  best,  in  working  his 
own  native  mines  of  thought,  by  his  unassisted  ener- 
gies. Here  it  is  granted  that  a  tutor,  a  guide,  or  even 
a  companion,  may  be  dispensed  with,  and  even  bene- 
ficially. But  in  the  case  of  foreign  languages,  in 
attaining  this  machinery  of  literature,  though  anomalies 


112  POPE. 

even  here  do  arise,  and  men  there  are,  like  Joseph 
Scab'ger,  who  form  their  own  dictionaries  and  gram- 
mars in  the  mere  process  of  reading  an  unknown 
language,  by  far  the  major  part  of  students  will  lose 
their  time  by  rejecting  the  aid  of  tutors.  As  there  has 
been  much  difference  of  opinion  with  regard  to  Pope's 
skill  in  languages,  we  shall  briefly  collate  and  bring 
into  one  focus  the  stray  notices. 

As  to  the  French,  Voltaire,  who  knew  Pope  person- 
ally, declared  that  he  '  could  hardly  read  it,  and  spoke 
not  one  syllable  of  the  language.'  But  perhaps  Vol- 
taire might  dislike  Pope?  On  the  contrary,  he  was 
acquainted  with  his  works,  and  admired  them  to  the 
very  level  of  their  merits.  Speaking  of  him  after 
death  to  Frederick  of  Prussia,  he  prefers  him  to 
Horace  and  Boileau,  asserting  that,  by  comparison 
with  them^ 

*  Pope  approfondit  ce  qu'ils  ont  effieuri. 
D'un  esprit  plus  hardi,  d'un  pas  plus  assure, 
II  porta  le  flambeau  dans  I'abime  de  I'etre  ; 
Et  I'homme  avec  lui  seul  apprit  a  se  connoitre. 
L'art  quelquefois  frivole,  et  quelquefois  divine, 
L'art  des  vers  est  dans  Pope  utile  au  genre  humain.' 

This  is  not  a  wise  account  of  Pope,  for  it  does  not 
abstract  the  characteristic  feature  of  his  power  ;  but  it 
is  a  very  kind  one.  And  of  course  Voltaire  could  not 
have  meant  any  unkindness  in  denying  his  knowledge 
of  French.  But  he  was  certainly  wrong.  Pope,  in 
his  presence,  would  decline  to  speak  or  to  read  a 
language  of  which  the  pronunciation  was  confessedly 
beyond  him.  Or,  if  he  did,  the  impression  left  would 
be  still  worse.     In  fact,  no  man  ever  will  pronounce^or 


poPE.f/pjw;  113.  J 

talk  a  language  which  he  does  'M^;^(^,  fqr  some  part      ' 
of  every  day,  in  the  real  intercourse^e!^:ijfe^  ■   But  that 
Pope  read  French  of  an  ordinary  cast  with  fluency 
enoufrh,  is  evident  from  the  extensive  use  which  he 
made  of  Madame  Dacier's  labors  on  the  Iliad,  and  still 
more  of  La  Valterie's  prose  translation  of  the   Iliad. 
Already  in  the  year  1718,  and  long  before  his  personal 
knowledge  of  Voltaire,  Pope  had  shown  his  accurate 
acquaintance  with  some  voluminous  French  authors,  in 
a  way  which,  we  suspect,  was  equally  surprising  and 
offensive  to  his  noble  correspondent.     The  Duke  of 
Buckingham  5  had  addressed  to  Pope  a  letter,  contain- 
ing some  account  of  the   controversy  about  Homer, 
which  had  then  been  recently  carried  on  in  France 
between  La  Motte  and  Madame  Dacier.     This  account 
was  delivered  with  an  air  of  teaching,  which  was  very 
little  in  harmony  with  its  excessive  shallowness.    Pope, 
who  sustained  the  part  of  pupil  in  this  interlude,  re- 
plied in  a  manner  that  exhibited  a  knowledge  of  the 
parties  concerned  in  the  controversy  much  superior  to 
that  of  the  duke.     In  particular,  he  characterized  the 
excellent  notes  upon  Horace  of  M.  Dacier,  the  hus- 
band, in  very  just  terms,  as  distinguished  from  those  of 
his  conceited  and  half-learned  wife ;   and  the  whole 
reply  of  Pope  seems  very^  much  as  though  he   had 
been  playing  off  a  mystification  on  his  grace.      Un- 
doubtedly the  pompous  duke  felt  that  he  had  caught  a 
Tartar.     Now  M.  Daciei's   Horace,  which,  with  the 
text,  fills  nine  volumes.   Pope  could   not   have    read 
except  in  French ;  for  they  are  not  even  yet  translated 
into  English.    Besides,  Pope  read  critically  the  French 
ranslations   of  his   own    Essay   on   Man,  Essay   on 
8 


114  POPE. 

Criticism,  Rape  of  the  Lock,  &c.  He  spoke  of  them 
as  a  critic ;  and  it  was  at  no  time  a  fault  of  Pope's  to 
make  false  pretensions.  All  readers  of  Pope's  Satires 
must  also  recollect  numerous  proofs,  that  he  had  read 
Boileau  with  so  much  feeling  of  his  peculiar  merit, 
that  he  has  appropriated  and  naturalized  in  English 
some  of  his  best  passages.  Voltaire  was,  therefore, 
certainly  wrong. 

Of  Italian  literature,  meantime,  Pope  knew  little  or 
nothing ;  and  simply  because  he  knew  nothing  of  the 
language.  Tasso,  indeed,  he  admired ;  and,  which  is 
singular,  more  than  Ariosto.  But  we  believe  that  he 
had  read  him  only  in  English  ;  and  it  is  certain  that  he 
could  not  take  up  an  Italian  author,  either  in  prose  or 
verse,  for  the  unaffected  amusement  of  his  leisure. 

Greek,  we  all  know,  has  been  denied  to  Pope,  ever 
since  he  translated  Homer,  and  chiefly  in  consequence 
of  that  translation.  This  seems  at  first  sight  unfair, 
because  criticism  has  not  succeeded  in  fixing  upon 
Pope  any  errors  of  ignorance.  His  deviations  from 
Homer  were  uniformly  the  result  of  imperfect  sym- 
pathy with  the  naked  simplicity  of  the  antique,  and 
therefore  wilful  deviations,  not  (like  those  of  his  more 
pretending  competitors,  Addison  and  Tickell)  pure 
blunders  of  misapprehension.  But  yet  it  is  not  incon- 
sistent with  this  concession  to  Pope's  merits,  that  we 
must  avow  our  belief  in  his  thorough  ignorance  of 
Greek  when  he  first  commenced  his  task.  And  to  us 
it  seems  astonishing  that  nobody  should  have  adverted 
to  that  fact  as  a  sufficient  solution,  and  in  fact  the  only 
plausible  solution,  of  Pope's  excessive  depression  of 
spirits  in  the  earliest  stage  of  his  labors.s    This  depres- 


POPE.  '     lip 

sion,  after  he  had  once  pledged  himself  to  his  sub- 
scribers for  the  fulfilment  of  his  task,  arose  from,  and 
could  have  arisen  from  nothing  else  than,  his  conscious 
ignorance  of  Greek  in  connection  with  the  solemn 
responsibilities  he  had  assumed  in  the  face  of  a  great 
nation.  Nay,  even  countries  as  presumptuously  dis- 
dainful of  tramontane  literature  as  Italy  took  an  inter- 
est in  this  memorable  undertaking.  Bishop  Berkeley 
found  Salvini  reading  it  at  Florence  ;  and  Madame 
Dacier  even,  who  read  little  but  Greek,  and  certainly 
no  English  until  then,  condescended  to  study  it.  Pope's 
dejection,  therefore,  or  rather  agitation  (for  it  impressed 
by  sympathy  a  tumultuous  character  upon  his  dreams, 
which  lasted  for  years  after  the  cause  had  ceased  to 
operate)  was  perfectly  natural  under  the  explanation 
we  have  given,  but  not  otherwise.  And  how  did  he 
surmount  this  unhappy  self-distrust  ?  Paradoxical  as  it 
may  sound,  we  will  venture  to  say,  that,  with  the  innu- 
merable aids  for  interpreting  Homer  which  even  then 
existed,  a  man  sufficiently  acquainted  with  Latin  might 
make  a  translation  even  critically  exact.  This  Pope 
was  not  long  in  discovering.  Other  alleviations  of  his 
labor  concurred,  and  in  a  ratio  daily  increasing. 

The  same  formulae  were  continually  recurring,  such 
as, 

'  But  him  answering;  thus  addressed  the  swift-footed  Achilles  ;  ' 

Or," 

'  But  him  sternly  beholding,  thus  spoke  Agamemnon  the  king 
of  men.' 

Then,   again,  universally  the   Homeric  Greek,  from 
many  causes,  is  easy  ;  and  especially  from  these  two  : 


/ 


116  POPE. 

1st,  The  simplicity  of  the  thought,  which  never  gathers 
into  those  perplexed  knots  of  rhetorical  condensation, 
which  we  find  in  the  dramatic  poets  of  a  higher  civi- 
lization.    2dly,  From  the   constant  bounds  set  to  the 
expansion  of  the  thought  by  the  form  of  the  metre  ;  an 
advantage  of  verse  which   makes  the  poets  so   much 
easier  to  a  beginner  in  the  German  language  than  the 
illimitable  weavers  of  prose.     The  line  or  the  stanza 
reins  up  the  poet  tightly  to  his  theme,  and  will  not 
suffer  him  to  expatiate.     Gradually,  therefore,  Pope 
came  to  read  the  Homeric   Greek,  but  never  accu- 
rately; nor  did  he  ever  read   Eustathius  without  aid 
from  Latin.     As  to  any  knowledge  of  the  Attic  Greek, 
of  the  Greek  of  the  dramatists,   the   Greek  of  Plato, 
the  Greek  of  Demosthenes,  Pope  neither  had  it  nor 
affected  to  have  it.     Indeed  it  was  no  foible  of  Pope's, 
as  we  will  repeat,  to  make  claims  which  he  had  not, 
or  even  to  dwell  ostentatiously  upon  those  which  he 
had.     And  with  respect  to  Greek  in  particular,  there  is 
a  manuscript  letter  in  existence  from  Pope  to  a  Mr. 
Bridges  at  Falham,  which,   speaking  of  the   original 
Homer,  distinctly  records  the  knowledge  which  he  had 
of  his  own   imperfectness   in  the  language.'     Chap- 
man, a  most  spirited  translator  of  Homer,  probably 
had  no  very  critical  skill  in  Greek ;  and  Hobbes  was, 
beyond   all  question,  as  poor  a  Grecian  as  he  was  a 
doggerel  translator ;  yet  in  this  letter  Pope  professes 
his  willing  submission  to  the  '  authority '  of  Chapman 
and  Hobbes,  as  superior  to  his  own. 

Finally,  in  Latin  Pope  was  a  '  considerable  profi-  j 
cient,'  even  by  the  cautious  testimony  of  Dr.  Johnson ; 
and  in  this  language  only  the  doctor  was  an  accom- 


POPE.  117 

plished  critic.  If  Pope  had  really  the  proficiency  here 
ascribed  to  him,  he  must  have  had  it  already  in  his 
boyish  years ;  for  the  translation  from  Statins,  which  is 
the  principal  monument  of  his  skill,  was  executed 
hefore  he  was  fourteen.  We  have  taken  the  trouble  to 
throw  a  hasty  glance  over  it;  and  whilst  we  readily 
admit  the  extraordinary  talent  which  it  shows,  as  do  all 
the  juvenile  essays  of  Pope,  we  cannot  allow  that  it 
argues  any  accurate  skill  in  Latin.  The  word  Malea ; 
as  we  have  seen  noticed  by  some  editor,  he  makes 
Malea ;  which  in  itself,  as  the  name  was  not  of  com- 
mon occurrence,  would  not  have  been  an  error  worth 
noticing;  but  taken  in  connection  with  the  certainty 
that  Pope  had  the  original  line  before  him  — 

*  Arripit  ex  templo  Maleae  de  valle  resurgens,' 

when  not  merely  the  scanning  theoretically,  but  the 
whole  rhythmus  practically,  to  the  most  obtuse  ear, 
would  be  annihilated  by  Pope's  false  quantity,  is  a 
blunder  which  serves  to  show  his  utter  ignorance  of 
prosody.  But,  even  as  a  version  of  the  sense,  with 
every  allowance  for  a  poet's  license  of  compression 
and  expansion,  Pope's  translation  is  defective,  and 
argues  an  occasional  inability  to  construe  the  text. 
For  instance,  at  the  council  summoned  by  Jupiter,  it  is 
said  that  he  at  his  first  entrance  seats  himself  upon  his 
starry  throne,  but  not  so  the  inferior  gods  ; 

'  Nee  protinus  ausi 
CcElicolae,  veniam  donee  pater  ipse  sedendi 
Tranquilla  jubet  esse  manu.' 

In  which  passage  there  is  a  slight  obscurity,  from  the 
ellipsis  of  the  word  sedere,  or  sese  locare ;  but  the 


118 


POPE. 


meaning  is  evidently  that  the  other  gods  did  not  pre- 
sume to  sit  down  protinus,  that  is,  in  immediate  suc- 
cession to  Jupiter,  and  interpreting  his  example  as  a 
tacit  license  to  do  so,  until,  by  a  gentle  wave  of  his 
hand,  the  supreme  father  signifies  his  express  permis- 
sion to  take  their  seats.  But  Pope,  manifestly  unable 
to  extract  any  sense  from  the  passage,  translates  thus : 

*  At  Jove's  assent  the  deities  around 
In  solemn  slate  the  consistory  crown'd  ; ' 

where  at  once  the  whole  picturesque  solemnity  of  the 
celestial  ritual  melts  into  the  vaguest  generalities. 
Again,  at  v.  178,  ruptceque  vices  is  translated,  'and  all 
the  ties  of  nature  broke;'  hut  hy  vices  is  indicated 
the  alternate  reign  of  the  two  brothers,  as  ratified  by 
mutual  oaths,  and  subsequently  violated  by  Eteocles. 
Other  mistakes  might  be  cited,  which  seem  to  prove  that 
Pope,  like  most  self-taught  linguists,  was  a  very  imper- 
fect one.6  Pope,  in  short,  never  rose  to  such  a  point 
in  classical  literature  as  to  read  either  Greek  or  Latin 
authors  without  effort,  and  for  his  private  amusement. 

The  result,  therefore,  of  Pope's  self-tuition  appears 
to  us,  considered  in  the  light  of  an  attempt  to  acquire 
certain  accomplishments  of  knowledge,  a  most  com- 
plete failure.  I  As  a  linguist,  he  read  no  language  with 
ease ;  none  with  pleasure  to  himself;  and  none  with  so 
much  accuracy  as  could  have  carried  him  through  the 
most  popular  author  with  a  general  independence  of 
interpreters.  But,  considered  with  a  view  to  his  par- 
ticular faculties  and  slumbering  originality  of  power, 
which  required  perhaps  the  stimulation  of  accident  to 
arouse  them  effectually,  we  are  very  much  disposed  to 


POPE.  119 

think  that  the  very  failure  of  his  education  as  an 
artificial  training  was  a  great  advantage  finally  for 
inclining  his  mind  to  throw  itself,  by  way  of  indemni- 
fication, upon  its  native  powers.  Had  he  attained,  as 
with  better  tuition  he  would  have  attained,  distinguished 
excellence  as  a  scholar,  or  as  a  student  of  science,  the 
chances  are  many  that  he  would  have  settled  down 
into  such  studies  as  thousands  could  pursue  not  less 
successfully  than  he  ;  whilst  as  it  was,  the  very  dissat- 
isfaction which  he  could  not  but  feel  with  his  slender 
attainments,  must  have  given  him  a  strong  motive  for 
cultivating  those  impulses  of  original  power  which  he 
felt  continually  stirring  within  him,  and  which  were 
vivified  into  trials  of  competition  as  often  as  any  dis- 
tinguished excellence  was  introduced  to  his  knowledge. 
I  Pope's  father,  at  the  time  of  his  birth,  lived  in  Lom- 
bard Street ; '''  a  street  still  familiar  to  the  public  eye, 
from  its  adjacency  to  some  of  the  chief  metropolitan 
establishments,  and  to  the  English  ear  possessing  a 
degree  of  historical  importance  ;  first,  as  the  residence 
of  those  Lombards,  or  Milanese,  who  affiliated  our 
infant  commerce  to  the  matron  splendors  of  the  Adri- 
atic and  the  Mediterranean  ;  next,  as  the  central  resort 
of  those  jewellers,  or  *  goldsmiths,'  as  they  were 
styled,  who  performed  all  the  functions  of  modern 
bankers  from  the  period  of  the  parlimentary  war  to 
the  rise  of  the  Bank  of  England,  that  is,  for  six  years 
after  the  birth  of  Pope ;  and,  lastly,  as  the  seat,  until 
lately,  of  that  vast  Post-Office,  through  which,  for  so 
long  a  period,  has  passed  the  correspondence  of  all 
nations  and  languages,  upon  a  scale  unknown  to  any 
other  country,   "i  In  this  street  Alexander  Pope  the  elder 


120  POPE. 

had  a  house,  and  a  warehouse,  we  presume  annexed, 
in  which  he  conducted  the  wholesale  business  of  a 
linen  merchant.  As  soon  as  he  had  made  a  moderate 
fortune  he  retired  from  business,  first  to  Kensington, 
and  afterwards  to  Binfield,  in  Windsor  Forest.  The 
period  of  this  migration  is  not  assigned  by  any  writer. 
It  is  probable  that  a  prjident  man  would  not  adopt  it 
with  any  prospect  of  having  more  children.  But  this 
chance  might  be  considered  as  already  extinguished  at 
the  birth  of  Pope  ;  for  though  his  father  had  then  only 
attained  his  forty-fourth  year,  Mrs.  Pope  had  completed 
her  forty-eighth.  It  is  probable,  from  the  interval  of 
seven  days  which  is  said  to  have  elapsed  between 
Pope's  punishment  and  his  removal  from  the  school, 
that  his  parents  were  then  living  at  such  a  distance 
from  him  as  to  prevent  his  ready  communication  with 
them,  else  we  may  be  sure  that  Mrs.  Pope  would  have 
flown  on  the  wings  of  love  and  wrath  to  the  rescue  of 
her  darling.  Supposing,  therefore,  as  we  do  suppose, 
that  Mr.  Bromley's  school  in  London  was  the  scene  of 
his  disgrace,  it  would  appear  on  this  argument  that  his 
parents  were  then  living  in  Windsor  Forest.  And  this 
hypothesis  falls  in  with  another  anecdote  in  Pope's  life, 
which  we  know  partly  upon  his  own  authority.  He 
tells  Wycherley  that  he  had  seen  Dryden,  and  barely 
seen  him.  Virgilium  vidi  tantum.  This  is  presumed 
to  have  been  in  Will's  Coffee-house,  whither  any 
person  in  search  of  Dryden  would  of  course  resort; 
and  it  must  have  been  before  Pope  was  twelve  years 
old,  for  Dryden  died  in  1700.  Now  there  is  a  letter 
of  Sir  Charles  Wogen's,  stating  that  he  first  took 
Pope  to  Will's;  and  his  words  are,  'from  our  forest.' 


POPE.  1^1 

Consequently,  at  that  period,  when  he  had  not  com- 
pleted his  twelfth  year,  Pope  was  already  living  in  the 
forest. 

From  this  period,  and  so  long  as  the  genial  spirits  of 
youth  lasted.  Pope's  life  must  have  been  one  dream  of 
pleasure.  He  tells  Lord  Harvey  that  his  mother  did 
not  spoil  him ;  but  that  was  no  doubt  because  there 
was  no  room  for  wilfulness  or  waywardness  on  either 
side,  when  all  was  one  placid  scene  of  parental  obedi- 
ence and  gentle  filial  authority.  We  feel  persuaded 
that,  if  not  in  words,  in  spirit  and  inclination,  they 
would,  in  any  notes  they  might  have  occasion  to  write, 
subscribe  themselves  *  Your  dutiful  parents.'  And  of 
what  consequence  in  whose  hands  were  the  reins  which 
were  never  needed  ?  Every  reader  must  be  pleased 
to  know  that  these  idolizing  parents  lived  to  see  their 
son  at  the  very  summit  of  his  public  elevation  ;  even 
his  father  lived  two  years  and  a  half  after  the  publica- 
tion of  his  Homer  had  commenced,  and  when  his 
fortune  was  made ;  and  his  mother  lived  for  nearly 
eighteen  years  more.  What  a  felicity  for  her,  how 
rare  and  how  perfect  to  find  that  he,  who  to  her 
maternal  eyes  was  naturally  the  most  perfect  of  human 
beings,  and  the  idol  of  her  heart,  had  already  been  the 
idol  of  the  nation  before  he  had  completed  his  j^outh. 
She  had  also  another  blessing  not  always  commanded 
by  the  most  devoted  love ;  many  sons  there  are  who 
think  it  essential  to  manliness  that  they  should  treat 
their  mother's  doating  anxiety  with  levity  or  even 
ridicule.  But  Pope,  who  was  the  model  of  a  good  son, 
never  swerved  in  words,  manners,  or  conduct,  from  the 
most  respectful  tenderness,  or  intermitted  the  piety  of 


122 


POPE. 


his  attentions.  And  so  far  did  he  carry  this  regard 
for  his  mother's  comfort,  that,  well  knowing  how  she 
lived  upon  his  presence  or  by  his  image,  he  denied 
himself  for  many  years  all  excursions  which  could  not 
be  fully  accomplished  within  the  revolution  of  a  week. 
And  to  this  cause,  combined  with  the  excessive  length 
of  his  mother's  life,  must  be  ascribed  the  fact  that 
Pope  never  went  abroad  ;  not  to  Italy  with  Thomson  or 
with  Berkeley,  or  any  of  his  diplomatic  friends ;  not  to 
Ireland,  where  his  presence  would  have  been  hailed  as 
a  national  honor ;  not  even  to  France,  on  a  visit  to  his 
admiring  and  admired  friend  Lord  Bolingbroke.  For 
as  to  the  fear  of  sea-sickness,  that  did  not  arise  until  a 
late  period  of  his  life ;  and  at  any  period  would  not 
have  operated  to  prevent  his  crossing  from  Dover  to 
Calais.  It  is  possible  that,  in  his  earlier  and  more 
sanguine  years,  all  the  perfection  of  his  filial  love  may 
not  have  availed  to  prevent  him  from  now  and  then 
breathing  a  secret  murmur  at  confinement  so  constant. 
But  it  is  certain  that,  long  before  he  passed  the  merid- 
ian of  his  life.  Pope  had  come  to  view  this  confine- 
ment with  far  other  thoughts.  Experience  had  then 
taught  him  that  to  no  man  is  the  privilege  granted  of 
possessing  more  than  one  or  two  friends  who  are  such 
in  extremity.  By  that  time'  he  had  come  to  view  his 
mother's  death  with  fear  and  anguish.  She,  he  knew 
by  many  a  sign,  would  have  been  happy  to  lay  down 
her  life  for  his  sake ;  but  for  others,  even  those  who 
were  the  most  friendly  and  the  most  constant  in  their 
attentions,  he  felt  but  too  certainly  that  his  death,  or 
his  heavy  affliction,  might  cost  them  a  few  sighs,  but 
would  not  materially  disturb  their  peace  of  mind.     '  It 


POPE.  123 

is  but  in  a  very  narrow  circle,'  says  he,  in  a  confiden- 
tial letter,  *  that  friendship  walks  in  this  world,  and  I 
care  not  to  tread  out  of  it  more  than  I  needs  must ; 
knowing  well  it  is  but  to  two  or  three,  (if  quite  so 
many,)  that  any  man's  welfare  or  memory  can  be  of 
consequence.'  After  such  acknowledgments,  we  are 
not  surprised  to  find  him  writing  thus  of  his  mother, 
and  his  fearful  struggles  to  fight  off  the  shock  of  his 
mother's  death,  at  a  time  when  it  was  rapidly  ap- 
proaching. After  having  said  of  a  friend's  death,  '  The 
subject  is  beyond  writing  upon,  beyond  cure  or  ease  by 
reason  or  reflection,  beyond  all  but  one  thought,  that  it 
is  the  will  of  God,'  he  goes  on  thus,  '  So  will  the 
death  of  my  mother  be,  which  now  I  tremble  at,  now 
resign  to,  now  bring  close  to  me,  now  set  farther  oflT; 
every  day  alters,  turns  me  about,  confuses  my  whole 
frame  of  mind.'  There  is  no  pleasure,  he  adds,  which 
the  world  can  give,  '  equivalent  to  countervail  either 
the  death  of  one  I  have  so  long  lived  with,  or  of  one  I 
have  so  long  lived  for.'  How  will  he  comfort  himself 
after  her  death .?  '  I  have  nothing  left  but  to  turn  my 
thoughts  to  one  comfort,  the  last  we  usually  think  of, 
though  the  only  one  we  should  in  wisdom  depend 
upon.  I  sit  in  her  room,  and  she  is  always  present 
before  me  but  when  I  sleep.  I  wonder  I  am  so  well. 
I  have  shed  many  tears ;  but  now  I  weep  at  nothing.' 

A  man,  therefore,  happier  than  Pope  in  his  domestic 
relations  cannot  easily  have  lived.  It  is  true  these 
relations  were  circumscribed ;  had  they  been  wider, 
they  could  not  have  been  so  happy.  But  Pope  was 
equally  fortunate  in  his  social  relations.  What,  indeed, 
most  of  all  surprises  us,  is  the  courteous,  flattering, 


124  POPE. 

and  even  brilliant  reception  which  Pope  found  from  his 
earliest  boyhood  amongst  the  most  accomplished  men 
of  the  world.  Wits,  courtiers,  statesmen,  grandees  the 
most  dignified,  and  men  of  fashion  the  most  brilliant, 
all  alike  treated  him  not  only  with  pointed  kindness, 
but  with  a  respect  that  seemed  to  acknowledge  him  as 
their  intellectual  superior.  Without  rank,  high  birth, 
fortune,  without  even  a  literary  name,  and  in  defiance 
of  a  deformed  person,  Pope,  whilst  yet  only  sixteen 
years  of  age,  was  caressed,  and  even  honored;  and 
all  this  with  no  one  recommendation  but  simply  the 
knowledge  of  his  dedication  to  letters,  and  the  prema- 
ture expectations  which  he  raised  of  future  excellence. 
Sir  William  Trumbull,  a  veteran  statesman,  who  had 
held  the  highest  stations,  both  diplomatic  and  ministe- 
rial, made  him  his  daily  companion.  Wycherley,  the 
old  roue  of  the  town,  a  second-rate  wit,  but  not  the 
less  jealous  on  that  account,  showed  the  utmost  defer- 
ence to  one  whom,  as  a  man  of  fashion,  he  must  have 
regarded  with  contempt,  and  between  whom  and  him- 
self there  were  nearly  '  fifty  good  years  of  fair  and 
foul  weather.' /  Cromwell,^  a  fox-hunting  country  gen- 
tleman, but  uniting  with  that  character  the  pretensions 
of  a  wit,  and  affecting  also  the  reputation  of  a  rake, 
cultivated  his  regard  with  zeal  and  conscious  inferi- 
ority. [  Nay,  which  never  in  any  other  instance  hap- 
pened to  the  most  fortunate  poet,  his  very  inaugural 
essays  in  verse  were  treated,  not  as  prelusive  efforts  of 
auspicious  promise,  but  as  finished  works  of  art,  enti- 
tled to  take  their  station  amongst  the  literature  of  the 
land ;  and  in  the  most  worthless  of  all  his  poems, 
Walsh,  an  established   authority,  and  whom  Dryden 


pronounced  the  ablest  critic  of  the  agei  fbiihcl  proofs  of 
equality  with  Virgil,    j 

The  literary  correspondence  with  these  gentlemen  is 
interesting,  as  a  model  of  what  once  passed  for  fine 
letter-writing.  Every  nerve  was  strained  to  outdo 
each  other  in  carving  all  thoughts  into  a  filagree  work 
of  rhetoric  ;  and  the  amcebsean  contest  was  like  that 
between  two  village  cocks  from  neighboring  farms 
endeavoring  to  overthrow  each  other.}  To  us,  in  this 
age  of  purer  and  more  masculine  taste,  the  whole 
scene  takes  the  ludicrous  air  of  old  and  young  fops 
dancing  a  minuet  with  each  other,  practising  the  most 
elaborate  grimaces,  sinkings  and  risings  the  most  awful, 
bows  the  most  overshadowing,  until  plain  walking, 
running,  or  the  motions  of  natural  dancing,  are  thought 
too  insipid  for  endurance.!  In  this  instance  the  taste 
had  perhaps  really  been  borrowed  from  France,  though 
often  enough  we  impute  to  France  what  is  the  native 
growth  of  all  minds  placed  in  similar  circumstances. 
Madame  de  Sevigne's  Letters  were  really  models  of 
grace.  But  Balzac,  whose  letters,  however,  are  not 
without  interest,  had  in  some  measure  formed  himself 
upon  the  truly  magnificent  rhetoric  of  Pliny  and 
Seneca.  Pope  and  his  correspondents,  meantime, 
degraded  the  dignity  of  rhetoric  by  applying  it  to 
trivial  commonplaces  of  compliment ;  whereas  Seneca 
applied  it  to  the  grandest  themes  which  life  or  contem- 
plation can  supply.  Lady  Mary  Wortley  Montagu, 
on  first  coming  amongst  the  wits  of  the  day,  naturally 
adopted  their  style.  She  found  this  sort  of  euphuism 
established  ;  and  it  was  not  for  a  very  young  woman  to 
oppose  it.     But  her  masculine  understanding  and  pow- 


126  POPE. 

erful  good  sense,  shaken  free,  besides,  from  all  local 
follies  by  travels  and  extensive  commerce  with  the 
world,  first  threw  off  these  glittering  chains  of  affecta- 
tion. jDean  Swift,  by  the  very  constitution  of  his 
mind,  plain,  sinewy,  nervous,  and  courting  only  the 
strength  that  allies  itself  with  homeliness,  was  always 
indisposed  to  this  mode  of  correspondence,  j  And, 
finally,  Pope  himself,  as  his  earlier  friends  died  off,  and 
his  own  understanding  acquired  strength,  laid  it  aside 
altogether.  One  reason  doubtless  was,  that  he  found 
it  too  fatiguing ;  since  in  this  way  of  letter-writing  he 
was  put  to  as  much  expense  of  wit  in  amusing  an  indi- 
vidual correspondent,  as  would  for  an  equal  extent 
have  sufficed  to  delight  the  whole  world.  A  funambu- 
list may  harass  his  muscles  and  risk  his  neck  on  the 
tight-rope,  but  hardly  to  entertain  his  own  family. 
Pope,  however,  had  another  reason  for  declining  this 
showy  system  of  fencing ;  and  strange  it  is  that  he  had 
not  discovered  this  reason  from  the  very  first.  As  life 
advanced,  it  happened  unavoidably  that  real  business 
advanced  ;  the  careless  condition  of  youth  prompted 
no  topics,  or  at  least  prescribed  none,  but  such  as  were 
agreeable  to  the  taste,  and  allowed  of  an  ornamental 
coloring.  But  when  downright  business  occurred, 
exchequer  bills  to  be  sold,  meetings  to  be  arranged, 
negotiations  confided,  difficulties  to  be  explained,  here 
and  there  by  possibility  a  jest  or  two  might  be  scat- 
tered, a  witty  allusion  thrown  in,  or  a  sentiment  inter- 
woven ;  but  for  the  main  body  of  the  case,  it  neither 
could  receive  any  ornamental  treatment,  nor  if,  by  any 
effort  of  ingenuity,  it  had,  could  it  look  otherwise  than 
silly  and  unreasonable  : 

'  Ornari  res  ipsa  negat,  con  tenia  doceri.' 


POPE.  127 

Pope's  idleness,  therefore,  on  the  one  hand,  concur- 
ring with  good  sense  and  the  necessities  of  business  on 
the  other,  drove  him  to  quit  his  gay  rhetoric  in  letter- 
writing.  But  there  are  passages  surviving  in  his 
correspondence  which  indicate,  that,  after  all,  had 
leisure  and  the  coarse  perplexities  of  life  permitted  it, 
he  still  looked  with  partiality  upon  his  youthful  style, 
and  cherished  it  as  a  first  love.  But  in  this  harsh 
world,  as  the  course  of  true  love,  so  that  of  rhetoric, 
never  did  run  smooth  ;  and  thus  it  happened  that,  with 
a  lingering  farewell,  he  felt  himself  forced  to  bid  it 
adieu.  Strange  that  any  man  should  think  his  own 
sincere  and  confidential  overflowings  of  thought  and 
feeling  upon  books,  men,  and  public  affairs,  less 
valuable  in  a  literary  view  than  the  ledgerdemain  of 
throwing  up  bubbles  into  the  air  for  the  sake  of  watch- 
ing their  prismatic  hues,  like  an  Indian  juggler  with  his 
cups  and  balls.  We  of  this  age,  who  have  formed  our 
notions  of  epistolary  excellence  from  the  chastity  of 
Gray's,  the  brilliancy  of  Lady  Mary  Wortley  Mon- 
tagu's during  her  later  life,  and  the  mingled  good  sense 
and  fine  feelings  of  Cowper's,  value  only  those  letters 
of  Pope  which  he  himself  thought  of  inferior  value. 
And  even  with  regard  to  these,  we  may  say  that  there 
is  a  great  mistake  made  ;  the  best  of  those  later  letters 
between  Pope  and  Swift,  &c.,  are  not  in  themselves  at 
all  superior  to  the  letters  of  sensible  and  accomplished 
women,  such  as  leave  every  town  in  the  island  by 
every  post.  Their  chief  interest  is  a  derivative  one ; 
we  are  pleased  with  any  letter,  good  or  bad,  which 
relates  to  men  of  such  eminent  talent ;  and  sometimes 
the   subjects   discussed   have   a   separate   interest   for 


128  POPE. 

themselves.  But  as  to  the  quality  of  the  discussion, 
apart  from  the  person  discussing  and  the  thing  dis- 
cussed, so  trivial  is  the  value  of  these  letters  in  a  large 
proportion,  that  we  cannot  but  wonder  at  the  preposter- 
ous value  which  was  set  upon  them  by  the  writers.^ 
Pope  especially  ought  not  to  have  his  ethereal  works 
loaded  by  the  mass  of  trivial  prose  which  is  usually 
attached  to  them. 

This  correspondence,  meantime,  with  the  wits  of  the 
time,  though  one  mode  by  which,  in  the  absence  of 
reviews,  the  reputation  of  an  author  was  spread,  did 
not  perhaps*  serve  the  interests  of  Pope  so  effectually 
as  the  poems  which  in  this  way  he  circulated  in  those 
classes  of  English  society  whose  favor  he  chiefly 
courted.  One  of  his  friends,  the  truly  kind  and  ac- 
complished Sir  William  Trumbull,  served  him  in  that 
way,  and  perhaps  in  another  eventually  even  more 
important.  The  library  of  Pope's  father  was  com- 
posed exclusively  of  polemical  divinity,  a  proof,  by 
the  way,  that  he  was  not  a  blind  convert  to  the  Roman 
Catholic  faith  ;  or,  if  he  was  so  originally,  had  re- 
viewed the  grounds  of  it,  and  adhered  to  it  aftei 
strenuous  study.  In  this  dearth  of  books  at  his  own 
home,  and  until  he  was  able  to  influence  his  father  in 
buying  more  extensively.  Pope  had  benefited  by  the 
loans  of  his  friends  ;  amongst  whom  it  is  probable  that 
Sir  William,  as  one  of  the  best  scholars  of  the  whole, 
might  assist  him  most.*  He  certainly  oflTered  him  the 
most  touching  compliment,  as  it  was  also  the  wisest 
and  most  paternal  counsel,  when  he  besought  him  as 
one  goddess-horn,  to  quit  the  convivial  society  of  deep 

drinkers : 

•  Heu,  fuge  nate  dea,  leque  his,  ait,  eripe  malis.' 


POPE.  129 

With  these  aids  from  friends  of  rank,  and  his  way 
thus  laid  open  to  public  favor,  in  the  year  1709  Pope 
first  came  forward  upon  the  stage  of  literature.  The 
same  year  which  terminated  his  legal  minority  intro- 
duced him  to  the  public.  Miscellanies  in  those  days 
were  almost  periodical  repositories  of  fugitive  verse. 
Tonson  happened  at  this  time  to  be  publishing  one  of 
some  extent,  the  sixth  volume  of  which  offered  a  sort 
of  ambush  to  the  young  aspirant  of  Windsor  Forest, 
from  which  he  might  watch  the  public  feeling.  The 
volume  was  opened  by  Mr.  Ambrose  Philips,  in  the 
character  of  pastoral  poet ;  and  in  the  same  character, 
but  stationed  at  the  end  of  the  volume,  and  thus 
covered  by  his  bucolic  leader,  as  a  soldier  to  the  rear 
by  the  file  in  advance,  appeared  Pope ;  so  that  he 
might  win  a  little  public  notice,  without  too  much 
seeming  to  challenge  it.  This  half-clandestine  emer- 
sion upon  the  stage  of  authorship,  and  his  furtive 
position,  are  both  mentioned  by  Pope  as  accidents,  but 
as  accidents  in  which  he  rejoiced,  and  not  improbably 
accidents  which  Tonson  had  arranged  with  a  view  to 
his  satisfaction. 

It  must  appear  strange  that  Pope  at  twenty-one 
should. choose  to  come  forward  for  the  first  time  with  a 
work  composed  at  sixteen.  A  difference  of  five  years 
at  that  stage  of  life  is  of  more  effect  than  of  twenty  at 
a  later ;  and  his  own  expanding  judgment  could  hardly 
fail  to  inforni  him,  that  his  Pastorals  were  by  far  the 
worst  of  his  works.  In  reality,  let  us  not  deny,  that 
had  Pope  never  written  any  thing  else,  his  name  would 
not  have  been  known  as  a  name  even  of  promise,  but 
would  probably  have  been  redeemed  from  oblivion  by 
9 


130  FOPE. 

some  satirist  or  writer  of  a  Dunciad.  Were  a  man  to 
meet  with  such  a  nondescript  monster  as  the  following, 
viz.,  *  Love  out  of  Mount  Mtna  hy  Whirlwind^^  he 
would  suppose  himself  reading  the  Racing  Calendar. 
Yet  this  hybrid  creature  is  one  of  the  many  zoological 
monsters  to  whom  the  Pastorals  introduce  us : 

•  I  know  thee,  love  !  on  foreign  mountains  bred, 
Wolves  gave  thee  suck,  and  savage  tigers  fed. 
Thou  wert  from  ^Etna's  burning  entrails  torn, 
Got  by  fierce  whirlwinds,  and  in  thunder  born.' 

But  the  very  names  'Damon'  and  *Strephon,'  *Phillis' 
and  'Delia,'  are  rank  with  childishness.  Arcadian 
life  is,  at  the  best,  a  feeble  conception,  and  rests  upon 
the  faj^e  principle  of  crowding  together  all  the  luscious 
sweets  of  rural  life,  undignified  by  the  danger  which 
attends  pastoral  life  in  our  climate,  and  unrelieved  by 
shades,  either  moral  or  physical.  And  the  Arcadia  of 
Pope's  age  was  the  spurious  Arcadia  of  the  opera 
theatre,  and,  what  is  worse,  of  the  French  opera. 

The  hostilities  which  followed  between  these  rival 
wooers  of  the  pastoral  muse  are  well  known.  Pope, 
irritated  at  what  he  conceived  the  partiality  shown  to 
Philips  in  the  Guardian,  pursued  the  review  ironically  ; 
and,  whilst  affecting  to  load  his  antagonist  with  praises, 
draws  into  pointed  relief  some  of  his  most  flagrant 
faults.  The  result,  however,  we  cannot  believe.  That 
all  the  wits,  except  Addison,  were  duped  by  the  irony, 
is  quite  impossible.  Could  any  man  of  sense  mistake 
for  praise  the  remark,  that  Philips  had  imitated  '  every 
line  of  Strada ; '  that  he  had  introduced  wolves  into 
England,  and  proved  himself  the  first  of  gardeners  by 


POPE.  131 

making  his  flowers  '  blow  all  in  the  same  season.' 
Or,  suppose  those  passages  unnoticed,  could  the  broad 
sneer  escape*  him,  where  Pope  taxes  the  other  writer 
(viz.,  himself)  with  having  deviated  '  into  downright 
poetry;'  or  the  outrageous  ridicule  of  Philip's  style, 
as  setting  up  for  the  ideal  type  of  the  pastoral  style, 
the  quotation  from  Gay,  beginning, 

*  Rager,  go  vetch  the  kee,  or  else  iha  zun    • 
Will  quite  bego  before  ch'  'avs  half  a  don  ! ' 

Philips  is  said  to  have  resented  this  treatment  by 
threats  of  personal  chastisement  to  Pope,  and  even 
hanging  up  a  rod  at  Button's  coffee-house.  We  may 
be  certain  that  Philips  never  disgraced  himself  by  such 
ignoble  conduct.  If  the  public  indeed  were  universally 
duped  by  the  paper,  what  motive  had  Philips  for  re- 
sentment? Or,  in  any  case,  what  plea  had  he  for 
attacking  Pope,  who  had  not  come  forward  as  the 
author  of  the  essay  ?  But,  from  Pope's  confidential 
account  of  the  matter,  v/e  know  that  Philips  saw  him 
daily,  and  never  offered  him  '  any  indecorum ; ' 
though,  for  some  cause  or  other.  Pope  pursued  Philips 
with  virulence  through  life. 

In  the  year  1711,  Pope  published  his  Essay  on 
Criticism,  which  some  people  have  very  unreasonably 
fancied  his  best  performance ;  and  in  the  same  year 
his  E,ape  of  the  Lock,  the  most  exquisite  monument 
of  playful  fancy  that-^universal  literature  offers.  It 
wanted,  however,  a^yet,  the  principle  of  its  vitality, 
in  wanting  the  machinery  of  sylphs  and  gnomes,  with 
which  addition  it  was  first  published  in  1714. 

In  the  year  1712,  Pope  appeared  again  before  the 


132 


POPE. 


public  as  the  author  of  the  Temple  of  Fame,  and  the 
Elegy  to  the  Memory  of  an  Unfortunate  Lady.  Much 
speculation  has  arisen  on  the  question  concerning  the 
name  of  this  lady,  and  the  more  interesting  question 
concerning  the  nature  of  the  persecutions  and  m'is- 
fortunes  which  she  suffered.  Pope  appears  purposely 
to  decline  answering  the  questions  of  his  friends  upon 
that  point ;  at  least  the  questions  have  reached  us,  and 
the  answers  have  not.  Joseph  Warton  supposed  him- 
self to  have  ascertained  four  facts  about  her :  that  her 
name  was  Wainsbury;  that  she  was  deformed  in 
person ;  that  she  retired  into  a  convent  from  some 
circumstances  connected  with  an  attachment  to  a 
young  man  of  inferior  rank ;  and  that  she  killed  her- 
self, not  by  a  sword,  as  the  poet  insinuates,  but  by  a 
halter.  As  to  the  latter  statement,  it  may  very  possi- 
bly be  true  ;  such  a  change  would  be  a  very  slight 
exercise  of  the  poet's  privileges.  As  to  the  rest,  there 
are  scarcely  grounds  enough  for  an  opinion.  Pope 
certainly  speaks  of  her  under  the  name  of  Mrs.  {i.  e. 
Miss)  W ,  which  at  least  argues  a  poetical  exag- 
geration in  describing  her  as  a  being  '  that  once  had 
titles,  honor,  wealth,  and  fame  ; '  and  he  may  as  much 
have  exaggerated  her  pretensions  to  beauty.  It  is 
indeed  noticeable,  that  he  speaks  simply  of  her  decent 
limbs,  which,  in  any  English  use  of  the  word,  does  not 
imply  much   enthusiasm  of  praise.     She   appears  to 

have   been   the   niece    of  a   Lady  A ;  and    Mr. 

Craggs,  afterwards  secretaiy  of  state,  wrote  to   Lady 

A on  her  behalf,  and  otherwise  took  an  interest  in 

her  fate.     As  to  her  being  a  relative  of  the  Duke  of 
Buckingham's,   that    rests    upon   a   mere    conjectural 


POPE.  133 

interpretation  applied  to  a  let  er  of  that  nobleman's. 
But  all  things  about  this  unhappy  lady  are  as  yet 
enveloped  in  mystery.     And  not  the  least  part  of  the 

mystery  is  a  letter  of  Pope's  to  a  Mr.  C ',  bearing 

date  1732,  that  is,  just  twenty  years  after  the  publica- 
tion of  the  poem,  in  which  Pope,  in  a  manly  tone, 
justifies  himself  for  his  estrangement,  and  presses 
against  his  unknown  correspondent  the  veiy  blame 
which  he  had  applied  generally  to  the  kinsman  of  the 
poor  victim  in  1712.  Now,  unless  there  is  some  mis- 
take in  the  date,  how  are  we  to  explain  this  gentle- 
man's long  lethargy,  and  his  sudden  sensibility  to 
Pope's  anathema,  with  which  the  world  has  resounded 
for  twenty  years  ? 

Pope  had  now  established  his  reputation  with  the 
public  as  the  legitimate  successor  and  heir  to  the 
poetical  supremacy  of  Dryden.  His  Rape  of  the 
Lock  was  unrivalled  in  ancient  or  modern  literature, 
and  the  time  had  now  arrived  when,  instead  of  seeking 
to  extend  his  fame,  he  might  count  upon  a  pretty 
general  support  in  applying  what  he  had  already 
established  to  the  promotion  of  his  own  interest.  Ac- 
cordingly, in  the  autumn  of  1713,  he  formed  a  final 
resolution  of  undertaking  a  new  translation  of  the 
Iliad.  It  must  be  observed,  that  already  in  1709, 
concurrently  with  his  Pastorals,  he  had  published 
specimens  of  such  a  translation  ;  and  these  had  been 
communicated  to  his  friends  some  time  before.  In 
particular,  Sir  William  Trumbull,  on  the  9th  of  April, 
1708,  urged  upon  Pope  a  complete  translation  of  both 
Iliad  and  Odyssey.  Defective  skill  in  the  Greek 
language,   exaggeration    of   the    difficulties,   and    the 


134  POPE. 

timidity  of  a  writer  as  yet  unknown,  and  not  quite 
twenty  years  old,  restrained  Pope  for  five  years  and 
more.  What  he  had  practised  as  a  sort  of  hravy/ra, 
for  a  single  effort  of  display,  he  recoiled  from  as  a 
daily  task  to  be  pursued  through  much  toil,  and  a  con- 
siderable section  of  his  life.  However,  he  dallied  with 
the  purpose,  starting  difficulties  in  the  temper  of  one 
who  wishes  to  hear  them  undervalued  ;  until  at  length 
Sir  Richard  Steele  determined  him  to  the  undertaking, 
a  fact  overlooked  by  the  biographers,  but  which  is 
ascertained  by  Ayre's  account  of  that  interview  be- 
tween Pope  and  Addison,  probably  in  1716,  which 
sealed  the  rupture  betw^een  them.  In  the  autumn  of 
1713,  he  made  his  design  known  amongst  his  friends. 
Accordingly,  on  the  21st  of  October,  we  have  Lord 
Lansdown's  letter,  expressing  his  great  pleasure  at  the 
communication ;  on  the  26th,  we  have  Addison's  letter 
encouraging  him  to  the  task  ;  and  in  November  of  the 
same  year  occurs  the  amusing  scene  so  graphically 
described  by  Bishop  Kennet,  when  Dean  Swift  pre- 
sided in  the  conversation,  and,  amongst  other  indica- 
tions of  his  conscious  authority,  '  instructed  a  young 
nobleman,  that  the  best  poet  in  England  was  Mr.  Pope, 
who  had  hegun  a  translation  of  Homer  into  English 
verse,  for  which  he  must  have  them  all  subscribe  ; 
for,'  says  he,  '  the  author  shall  not  begin  to  print 
until  I  have  a  thousand  guineas  for  him.'* 

If  this  were  the  extent  of  what  Swift  anticipated 
from  the  work,  he  fell  miserably  below  the  result. 
But,  perhaps,  he  spoke  only  of  a  cautionary  arrha  or 
earnest.  As  this  was  unquestionably  the  greatest 
literary  labor,  as  to  profit,  ever  executed,  not  excepting 


POPE.  1^ 

the  most  lucrative  of  Sir  Walter  Scott's,  if  due  allow- 
ance be  made  for  the  altered  value  of  money,  and  if 
we  consider  the  Odyssey  as  forming  part  of  the  labor, 
it  may  be  right  to  state  the  particulars  of  Pope's  con- 
tract with  Lintot. 

The  number  of  subscribers  to  the  Iliad  was  574,  and 
the  number  of  copies  subscribed  for  was  654.  The 
work  was  to  be  printed  in  six  quarto  volumes  ;  and  the 
subscription  was  a  guinea  a  volume.  Consequently  by 
the  subscription  Pope  obtained  six  times  654  guineas, 
or  ^4218  6s.,  (for  the  guinea  then  passed  for  21s. 
6^.) ;  and  for  the  copyright  of  each  volume  Lintot 
offered  .£200,  consequently  .£1200  for  the  whole  six; 
so  that  from  the  Iliad  the  profit  exactly  amounted  to 
.£5310  16s.  Of  the  Odyssey,  574  copies  were  sub- 
•  scribed  for.  It  was  to  be  printed  in  five  quarto 
volumes,  and  the  subscription  was  a  guinea  a  volume. 
Consequently  by  the  subscription  Pope  obtained  five 
times  574  guineas,  or  .£3085  5s. ;  and  for  the  copy- 
right Lintot  offered  .£600.  The  total  sum  received, 
therefore,  by  Pope,  on  account  of  the  Odyssey,  was 
.£3685  5s.  But  in  this  instance  he  had  two  coadju- 
tors, Broome  and  Fenton ;  between  them  they  trans- 
lated twelve  books,  leaving  twelve  to  Pope.  The  notes 
also  were  compiled  by  Broome  ;  but  the  postscript  to  the 
notes  was  written  by  Pope.  Fenton  received  £300, 
Broome  £500.  Such  at  least  is  Warton's  account,  and 
more  probable  than  that  of  Iluff*head,  who  not  only 
varies  the  proportions,  but  increases  the  whole  sum 
given  to  the  assistants  by  £100.  Thus  far  we  had 
followed  the  guidance  of  mere  probabilities,  as  they  lie 
upon  the  face  of  the  transaction.     But  we  have  since 


136  POPE.   • 

detected  a  written  statement  of  Pope's,  unaccountably 
overlooked  by  the  biographers,  and  serving  of  itself  to 
show  how  negligently  they  have  read  the  works  of  their 
illustrious  subject.  The  statement  is  entitled  to  the 
fullest  attention  and  confidence,  not  being  a  hasty  or 
casual  notice  of  the  transaction,  but  pointedly  shaped 
to  meet  a  calumnious  rumor  against  Pope  in  his  char- 
acter of  paymaster ;  as  if  he  who  had  found  so  much 
liberality  from  publishers  in  his  own  person,  were 
niggardly  or  unjust  as  soon  as  he  assumed  those  rela- 
tions to  others.  Broome,  it  was  alleged,  had  expressed 
himself  dissatisfied  with  Pope's  remuneration.  Per- 
haps he  had.  For  he  would  be  likely  -to  frame  his 
estimate  for  his  own  services  from  the  scale  of  Pope's 
reputed  gains ;  and  those  gains  would,  at  any  rate,  be 
enormously  exaggerated,  as  uniformly  happens  where 
there  is  a  basis  of  the  marvellous  to  begin  with.  And, 
secondly,  it  would  be  natural  enough  to  assume  the 
previous  result  from  the  Iliad  as  a  fair  standard  for 
computation  ;  but  in  this,  as  we  know,  all  parties  found 
themselves  disappointed,  and  Broome  had  the  less 
right  to  murmur  at  this,  since  the  arrangement  with 
himself  as  chief  journeyman  in  the  job  was  one  main 
cause  of  the  disappointment.  There  was  also  another 
reason  why  Broome  should  be  less  satisfied  than  Fen- 
ton.  Verse  for  verse,  any  one  thousand  lines  of  a 
translation  so  purely  mechanical  might  stand  against 
any  other  thousand  ;  and  so  far  the  equation  of  claims 
was  easy.  A  book-keeper,  with  a  pen  behind  his  ear, 
and  Cocker's  Golden  Rule  open  before  him,  could  do 
full  justice  to  Mr.  Broome  as  a  poet  every  Saturday 
night.     But  Broome  had  a  separate  account  current  for 


POPE.  137 

pure  prose  against  Pope.  One  he  had  in  conjunction 
with  Fenton  for  verses  delivered  on  the  premises  at  so 
much  per  hundred,  on  which  there  could  be  no  demur, 
except  as  to  the  allowance  for  tare  and  tret  as  a 
discount  in  favor  of  Pope.  But  the  prose  account, 
the  account  for  notes,  requiring  very  various  degrees 
of  reading  and  research,  allowed  of  no  such  easy- 
equation.  There  it  was,  we  conceive,  that  Broome's 
discontent  arose.  Pope,  however,  declares  that  he 
had  given  him  ^500,  thus  confirming  the  proportions 
of  Warton  against  lluffhead,  (that  is,  in  effect.  War- 
burton,)  and  some  other  advantages  which  were  not  in 
money,  nor  deductions  at  all  from  his  own  money 
profits,  but  which  may  have  been  worth  so  much 
money  to  Broome,  as  to  give  some  colorable  truth  to 
RufThead's  allegation  of  an  additional  ^100.  In  direct 
money,  it  remains  certain  that  Fenton  had  three,  and 
Broome  five  hundred  pounds.  It  follows,  therefore, 
that  for  the  Iliad  and  Odyssey  jointly  he  received  a 
sum  of  .£8996  Is.,  and  paid  for  assistance  .£800, 
which  leaves  to  himself  a  clear  sum  of  £8196  Is. 
And,  in  fact,  his  profits  ought  to  be  calculated  without 
deduction,  since  it  was  his  own  choice,  from  indolence, 
to  purchase  assistance. 

The  Iliad  was  commenced  about  October,  1713.  In 
the  summer  of  the  following  year  he  was  so  far  ad- 
vanced as  to  begin  making  arrangements  with  Lintot 
for  the  printing  ;  and  the  first  two  books,  in  manu- 
script, were  put  into  the  hands  of  Lord  Halifax.  In 
June,  1715,  between  the  10th  and  28th,  the  subscribers 
received  their  copies  of  the  first  volume  ;  and  in  July 
Lintot  began  to  publish  that  volume  generally.     Some 


138 


POPE. 


readers  will  inquire,  who  paid  for  the  printing  and 
paper,  &c.  ?  All  this  expense  fell  upon  Lintot,  for 
whom  Pope  was  superfluously  anxious.  The  sagacious 
bookseller  understood  what  he  was  af)out ;  and,  when  a 
pirated  edition  was  published  in  Holland,  he  counter- 
acted the  injury  by  printing  a  cheap  edition,  of  which 
7500  copies  were  sold  in  a  few  weeks  ;  an  extraordi- 
nary proof  of  the  extended  interest  in  literature.  The 
second,  third,  and  fourth  volumes  of  the  Iliad,  each 
containing,  like  the  first,  four  books,  were  published 
successively  in  1716,  1717,  1718;  and  in  1720,  Pope 
completed  the  work  by  publishing  the  fifth  volume, 
containing  five  books,  and  the  sixth,  containing  the 
last  three,  with  the  requisite  supplementary  apparatus. 
The  Odyssey  was  commenced  in  1723,  (not  1722, 
as  Mr.  Roscoe  virtually  asserts  at  p.  259,)  and  the 
publication  of  it  was  finished  in  1725.  The  sale 
however,  was  much  inferior  to  that  of  the  Iliad ;  for 
which  more  reasons  than  one  might  be  assigned.  But 
there  can  be  no  doubt  that  Pope  himself  depreciated 
the  work,  by  his  undignified  arrangements  for  working 
by  subordinate  hands.  Such  a  process  may  answer  in 
sculpture,  because  there  a  quantity  of  rough-hewing 
occurs,  which  can  no  more  be  improved  by  committing 
it  to  a  Phidias,  than  a  common  shop-bill  could  be 
improved  in  its  arithmetic  by  Sir  Isaac  Newton.  But 
in  literature  such  arrangements  are  degrading ;  and 
above  all,  in  a  work  which  was  but  too  much  exposed 
already  to  the  presumption  of  being  a  mere  effort  of 
mechanic  skill,  or  (as  Curll  said  to  the  House  of  Lords) 
*«  knack;''  it  was  deliberately  helping  forward  that 
idea   to   let   off*  parts  of  the   labor.      Only   think  of 


POPE. 


139 


Milton  letting  off  by  contract  to  the  lowest  offer,  and  to 
be  delivered  by  such  a  day,  (for  which  good  security 
to  be  found,)  six  books  of  Paradise  Lost.  It  is  true, 
the  great  dramatic  authors  were  often  coUadorateurs, 
but  their  case  was  essentially  different.  The  loss, 
however,  fell  not  upon  Pope,  but  upon  Lintot,  who,  on 
this  occasion,  was  out  of  temper,  and  talked  rather 
broadly  of  prosecution.  But  that  was  out  of  the  ques- 
tion. Pope  had  acted  indiscreetly,  but  nothing  could 
be  alleged  against  his  honor;  for  he  had  expressly 
warned  the  public,  that  he  did  not,  as  in  the  other  case, 
profess  to  translate,  but  to  undertake  ^^  a  translation 
of  the  Odyssey.  Lintot,  however,  was  no  loser,  abso- 
lutely, though  he  might  be  so  in  relation  to  his  expec- 
tations ;  on  the  contrary,  he  grew  rich,  bought  land, 
and  became  sheriff  of  the  county  in  which  his  estates 
lay. 

We  have  pursued  the  Homeric  labors  uninterrupted- 
ly from  their  commencement  in  1713,  till  their  final 
termination  in  1725,  a  period  of  twelve  years  or 
nearly  ;  because  this  was  the  task  to  which  Pope  owed 
the  dignity,  if  not  the  comforts,  of  his  life,  since  it  was 
this  which  enabled  him  to  decline  a  pension  from  all 
administrations,  and  even  from  his  friend  Craggs,  the 
secretary,  to  decline  the  express  offer  of  .£300  per 
annum.  Indeed  Pope  is  always  proud  to  own  his 
obligations  to  Homer.  In  the  interval,  however,  be- 
tween the  Iliad  and  the  Odyssey,  Pope  listened  to 
proposals  made  by  Jacob  Tonson,  that  he  should  revise 
an  edition  of  Shakspeare.  For  this,  which  was  in  fact 
the  first  attempt  at  establishing  the  text  of  the  mighty 
poet.  Pope  obtained   but   little   money,  and  still  less 


140  POPE. 

reputation.  He  received,  according  to  tradition,  only 
.£217  125.  for  his  trouble  of  collation,  which  must 
have  been  considerable,  and  some  other  trifling  edito- 
rial labor.  I  And  the  opinion  of  all  judges,  from  the 
first  so  unfavorable  as  to  have  depreciated  the  money- 
value  of  the  book  enormously  perhaps  from  a  prepos- 
session of  the  public  mind  against  the  fitness  of  Pope 
for  executing  the  dull  labors  of  revision,  has  ever  since 
pronounced  this  w^ork  the  very  worst  edition  in  exist- 
ence. I  For  the  edition  we  have  little  to  plead  ;  but  for 
the  editor  it  is  but  just  to  make  three  apologies.  In 
the  first  place,  he  wrote  a  brilliant  preface,  which, 
although  (like  other  works  of  the  same  class)  too  much 
occupied  in  displaying  his  own  ability,  and  too  often, 
for  the  sake  of  an  effective  antithesis,  doing  deep 
injustice  to  Shakspeare,  yet  undoubtedly,  as  a  whole, 
extended  his  fame,  by  giving  the  sanction  and  coun- 
tersign of  a  great  wit  to  the  national  admiration. 
Secondly,  as  Dr.  Johnson  admits.  Pope's  failure  pointed 
out  the  right  road  to  his  successors.  Thirdly^  even  in 
this  failure  it  is  but  fair  to  say,  that  in  a  graduated 
scale  of  merit,  as  distributed  amongst  the  long  succes- 
sion of  editors  through  that  century.  Pope  holds  a  rank 
pxoportionable  to  his  ageii  For  the  year  1720,  he  is  no 
otherwise  below  Theobald,  Hanmer,  Capell,  Warbur- 
ton,  or  even  Johnson,  than  as  they  are  successively 
below  each  other,  and  all  of  them  as  to  accuracy 
below  Steevens,  as  he  again  was  below  Malone  and 
Reed. 

The  gains  from  Shakspeare  would  hardly  counter- 
balance the  loss  which  Pope  sustained  this  year  from 
the  South  Sea  Bubble.     One  thing,  by  the  way,  is  still 


POPE.  141 

unaccountably  neglected  by  writers  on  this  question. 
How  it  was  that  the  great  Mississippi  Bubble,  during 
the  Orleans  regency  in  Paris,  should  have  happened  to 
coincide  with  that  of  London.  If  this  were  accident, 
how  marvellous  that  the  sanne  insanity  should  possess 
the  two  great  capitals  of  Christendom  in  the  same 
year !  If,  again,  it  were  not  accident,  but  due  to  some 
common  cause,  why  is  not  that  cause  explained  ? 
Pope  to  his  nearest  friends  never  stated  the  amount  of 
his  loss.  The  biographers  report  that  at  one  time  his 
stock  was  worth  from  twenty  to  thirty  thousand  pounds. 
But  that  is  quite  impossible.  It  is  true,  that  as  the 
stock  rose  at  one  time  a  thousand  per  cent.,  this  would 
not  imply  on  Pope's  part  an  original  purchase  beyond 
twenty-five  hundred  pounds  or  thereabouts.  But  Pope 
has  furnished  an  argument  against  that^  which  we  shall 
improve.  He  quotes,  more  than  once,  as  applicable  to 
his  own  case,  the  old  proverbial  riddle  of  Hesiod, 
■nXiov  i,uiov  navrog,  the  half  IS  more  than  the  whole. 
What  did  he  mean  by  that  ?  We  understand  it  thus  : 
That  between  the  selling  and  buying,  the  variations 
had  been  such  as  to  sink  his  shares  to  one  half  of  the 
price  they  had  once  reached,  but,  even  at  that  depreci- 
ation, to  leave  him  richer  on  selling  out  than  he  had 
been  at  first.  But  the  half  of  ^25,000  would  be  a  far 
larger  sum  than  Pope  could  have  ventured  to  risk  upon 
a  fund  confessedly  liable  to  daily  fluctuation.  .£3000 
would  be  the  utmost  he  could  risk ;  in  which  case  the 
half  of  ^25,000  would  have  left  him  so  very  much 
richer,  that  he  would  have  proclaimed  his  good  fortune 
as  an  evidence  of  his  skill  and  prudence.  Yet,  on  the 
contrary,  he-  wished  his  friends  to  understand  at  times 


142  POPE. 

that  he  had  lost.  But  his  friends  forgot  to  ask  one 
important  question :  Was  the  word  loss  to  be  under- 
stood in  relation  to  the  imaginary  and  nominal  wealth 
which  he  once  possessed,  or  in  relation  to  the  absolute 
sum  invested  in  the  South  Sea  fund  ?  The  truth  is, 
Pope  practised  on  this,  as  on  other  occasions,  a  little 
finessing,  which  is  the  chief  foible  in  his  character. 
His  object  was,  that,  according  to  circumstances,  he 
might  vindicate  his  own  freedom  from  the  common 
mania,  in  case  his  enemies  should  take  that  handle  for 
attacking  him  ;  or  might  have  it  in  his  power  to  plead 
poverty,  and  to  account  for  it,  in  case  he  should  ever 
accept  that  pension  which  had  been  so  often  tendered 
but  never  sternly  rejected. 

In  1723  Pope  lost  one  of  his  dearest  friends.  Bishop 
Atterbury,  by  banishment;  a  sentence  most  justly 
incurred,  and  mercifully  mitigated  by  the  hostile  Whig 
government.  On  the  bishop's  trial  a  circumstance 
occurred  to  Pope  which  flagrantly  corroborated  his  own 
belief  in  his  natural  disqualification  for  public  life. 
He  was  summoned  as  an  evidence  on  his  friend's 
behalf.  He  had  but  a  dozen  words  to  say,  simply 
explaining  the  general  tenor  of  his  lordship's  behavior 
at  Bromley,  and  yet,  under  this  trivial  task,  though 
supported  by  the  enthusiasm  of  his  friendship,  he 
broke  down.  Lord  Bolingbroke,  returning  from  exile, 
met  the  bishop  at  the  sea-side ;  upon  which  it  was 
wittily  remarked  that  they  were  '  exchanged.'  Lord 
Bolingbroke  supplied  to  Pope  the  place,  or  perhaps 
more  than  supplied  the  place,  of  the  friend  he  had 
lost;  for  Bolingbroke  was  a  free-thinker,  and  so  far 
more  entertaining  to  Pope,  even  whilst  partially  dis- 


POPE.  148 

senting,  than  Atterbury,  whose  clerical  profession  laid 
him  under  restraints  of  decorum,  and  latterly,  there  is 
reason  to  think,  of  conscience. 

In  1725,  on  closing  the  Odyssey,  Pope  announces 
his  intention  to  Swift  of  quitting  the  labors  of  a  trans- 
lator, and  thenceforwards  applying  himself  to  original 
composition.  This  resolution  led  to  the  Essay  on  Man, 
which  appeared  soon  afterwards  ;  and,  with  the  excep- 
tion of  two  labors,  which  occupied  Pope  in  the  interval 
between  1726  and  1729,  the  rest  of  his  life  may 
properly  be  described  as  dedicated  to  the  further  exten- 
sion of  that  Essay.  The  two  works  which  he  inter- 
posed were  a  collection  of  the  fugitive  papers,  whether 
prose  or  verse,  which  he  and  Dean  Swift  had  scattered 
amongst  their  friends  at  different  periods  of  life.  The 
avowed  motive  for  this  publication,  and,  in  fact,  the 
secret  motive,  as  disclosed  in  Pope's  confidential 
letters,  was  to  make  it  impossible  thenceforwards  for 
piratical  publishers  like  Curll.  Both  Pope  and  Swift 
dreaded  the  malice  of  Curll  in  case  they  should  die 
before  him.  It  was  one  of  CurlPs  regular  artifices  to 
publish  a  heap  of  trash  on  the  death  of  any  eminent 
man,  under  the  title  of  .his  Remains;  and  in  allusion 
to  that  practice,  it  was  that  Arbuthnot  most  wittily 
called  Curll  '  one  of  the  new  terrors  of  death.'  By 
publishing  all^  Pope  would  have  disarmed  Curll  before- 
hand ;  and  that  was  in  fact  the  purpose ;  and  that  plea 
only  could  be  ofl^ered  by  two  grave  authors,  one  forty, 
the  other  sixty  years  old,  for  reprinting  jeux  cfesprit^ 
that  never  had  any  other  apology,  than  the  youth  of 
their  authors.  Yet,  strange  to  say,  after  all,  some 
were   omitted;  and   the  omission  of  one   opened  the 


144  POPE. 

door  to  Curll  as  well  as  that  of  a  score.  Let  Curll 
have  once  inserted  the  narrow  end  of  the  wedge,  he 
would  soon  have  driven  it  home. 

This  Miscellany,  however,  in  three  volumes,  (pub- 
lished in  1727,  but  afterwards  increased  by  a  fourth  in 
1732,)  though  in  itself  a  trifling  work,  had  one  vast 
consequence.  It  drew  after  it  swarms  of  libels  and 
lampoons,  levelled  almost  exclusively  at  Pope,  although 
the  cipher  of  the  joint  authors  stood  entwined  upon  the 
title-page.  These  libels  in  their  turn  produced  a 
second  reaction  ;  and,  by  stimulating  Pope  to  effectual 
anger,  eventually  drew  forth,  for  the  everlasting  admi- 
ration of  posterity,  the  very  greatest  of  Pope's  works  ; 
a  monument  of  satirical  power  the  greatest  which  man 
has  produced,  not  excepting  the  MacFleckno  of  Dry- 
den,  namely,  the  immortal  Dunciad. 

In  October  of  the  year  1727,  this  poem,  in  its 
original  form,  was  completed.  Many  editions,  not 
spurious  altogether,  nor  surreptitious,  but  with  some 
connivance,  not  yet  explained,  from  Pope,  were  printed 
in  Dublin  and  in  London.  But  the  first  quarto  and 
acknowledged  edition  was  published  in  London  early 
in  '  1728  -  9,'  as  the  editors  choose  to  write  it,  that 
is,  (without  perplexing  the  reader,)  in  1729.  On 
March  12  of  which  year  it  was  presented  by  the 
prime  minister,  Sir  Robert  Walpole,  to  the  king  and 
queen  at  St.  James's. 

Like  a  hornet,  who  is  said  to  leave  his  sting  in  the 
wound,  and  afterwards  to  languish  away,  Pope  felt  so 
greatly  exhausted  by  the  efforts  connected  with  the 
Dunciad,  (which  are  far  greater,  in  fact,  than  all  his 
Homeric  labors   put  together,)  that  he  prepared  his 


pop: 


U^ 


friends  to  expect  for  the  future  onlygR'  nnjfotenf  com- 
panion and  a  hermit.  Events  rapidly  succeeded  which 
tended  to  strengthen  the  impression  he  had  conceived 
of  his  own  decay,  and  certainly  to  increase  his  disgust 
with  the  world.  I  In  1732  died  his  friend  Atterbury ;  ' 
and  on  December  the  7th  of  the  same  year  Gay,  the 
most  unpretending  of  all  the-wits  whom  he  knew,  and 
the  one  with  whom  he  had  at  one  time  been  domesti- 
cated, expired,  after  an  illness  of  three  days,  which 
Dr.  Arbuthnot  declares  to  have  been  *  the  most  pre- 
cipitate '  he  ever  knew.  But  in  fact  Gay  had  long 
been  decaying  from  the  ignoble  vice  of  too  much  and 
too  luxurious  eating.  Six  months  after  this  loss,  which 
greatly  affected  Pope,  came  the  last  deadly  wound 
which  this  life  could  inflict,  in  the  death  of  his  mother. 
She  had  for  some  time  been  in  her  dotage,  and  recog- 
nised no  face  but  that  of  her  son,  so  that  her  death 
was  not  unexpected  ;  but  that  circumstance  did  not 
soften  the  blow  of  separation  to  Pope.  She  died  on 
the  7th  of  June,  1733,  being  then  ninety-three  years 
old.  Three  days  after,  writing  to  Richardson,  the 
painter,  for  the  purpose  of  urging  him  to  come  down 
and  take  her  portrait  before  the  coffin  was  closed,  he 
says,  *  I  thank  God,  her  death  was  as  easy  as  her  life 
was  innocent ;  and  as  it  cost  her  not  a  groan,  nor  even 
a  sigh,  there  is  yet  upon  her  countenance  such  an 
expression  of  tranquillity,'  that  '  it  would  aflbrd  the 
finest  image  of  a  saint  expired  that  ever  painting  drew. 
Adieu,  may  you  die  as  happily.'  The  funeral  took 
place  on  the  1 1th  ;  Pope  then  quitted  the  house,  unable 
to  support  the  silence  of  her  chamber,  and  did  not 
10 


146  POPE. 

return  for  months,  nor  in  fact  ever  reconciled  himself 
to  the  sight  of  her  vacant  apartment. 

Swift  also  he  had  virtually  lost  for  ever.  In  April, 
1727,  this  unhappy  man  had  visited  Pope  for  the  last 
time.  During  this  visit  occurred  the  death  of  George  I. 
Great  expectations  arose  from  that  event  amongst  the 
Tories,  in  which,  of  course.  Swift  shared.  It  was 
reckoned  upon  as  a  thing  of  course  that  Walpole 
would  be  dismissed.  But  this  bright  gleam  of  hope 
proved  as  treacherous  as  all  before ;  and  the  anguish 
of  this  final  disappointment  perhaps  it  was  which 
brought  on  a  violent  attack  of  Swift's  constitutional 
malady.  On  the  last  of  August  he  quitted  Pope's 
house  abruptly,  concealed  himself  in  London,  and 
finally  quitted  it,  as  stealthily  as  he  had  before  quitted 
Twickenham,  for  Ireland,  never  more  to  return.  He 
left  a  most  affectionate  letter  for  Pope  ;  but  his  affliction, 
and  his  gloomy  anticipations  of  insanity,  wei'e  too 
oppressive  to  allow  of  his  seeking  a  personal  interview. 

Pope  might  now  describe  himself  pretty  nearly  as 
ultimus  suorum;  and  if  he  would  have  friends  in 
future,  he  must  seek  them,  as  he  complains  bitterly, 
almost  amongst  strangers  and  another  generation. 
This  sense  of  desolation  may  account  for  the  acrimony 
which  too  much  disfigures  his  writings  henceforward. 
Between  1732  and  1740,  he  was  chiefly  engaged  in 
satires,  which  uniformly  speak  a  high  moral  tone  in 
the  -midst  of  personal  invective ;  or  in  poems  directly 
philosophical,  which  almost  as  uniformly  speak  the 
bitter  tone  of  satire  in  the  midst  of  dispassionate  ethics. 
His  Essay  on  Man  was  but  one  link  in  a  general 
course  which  he  had  projected  of  moral   philosophy, 


POPE.  147 

here  and  there  pursuing  his  themes  into  the  fields  of 
metaphysics,  but  no  farther  in  either  field  of  morals  or 
metaphysics  than  he  could  make  compatible  with  a 
poetical  treatment.  These  works,  however,  naturally 
entangled  him  in  feuds  of  various  complexions  with 
people  of  very  various  pretensions  ;  and  to  admirers  of 
Pope  so  fervent  as  we  profess  ourselves,  it  is  painful 
to  acknowledge  that  the  dignity  of  his  latter  years,  and 
the  becoming  tranquillity  of  increasing  age,  are  sadly 
disturbed  by  the  petulance  and  the  tone  of  irritation 
which,  alike  to  those  in  the  wrong  and  in  the  right, 
inevitably  besiege  all  personal  disputes.  He  was  agi- 
tated, besides,  by  a  piratical  publication  of  his  corres- 
pondence. \  This  emanated,  of  course,  from  the  den 
of  Curll,  the  universal  robber  and  '  blatant  beast '  of 
those  days ;  and,  besides  the  injury  offered  to  his 
feelings  by  exposing  some  youthful  sallies  which  he 
wished  to  have  suppressed,  it  drew  upon  him  a  far 
more  disgraceful  imputation,  most  assuredly  unfounded, 
but  accredited  by  Dr.  Johnson,  and  consequently  in  full 
currency  to  this  day,  of  having  acted  coUusively  with 
Curll,  or  at  least  through  Curll,  for  the  publication  of 
what  he  wished  the  world  to  see,  but  could  not  else 
have  devised  any  decent  pretext  for  exhibiting.^  The 
disturbance  of  his  mind  on  this  occasion  led  to  a  cir- 
cular request,  dispersed  among  his  friends,  that  they 
would  return  his  letters.  All  complied  except  Swift, 
He  only  delayed,  and  in  fact  shuffled.  But  it  is  easy 
to  read  in  his  evasions,  and  Pope,  in  spite  of  his  vexa- 
tion, read  the  same  tale,  viz.,  that,  in  consequence  of 
his  recurring  attacks  and  increasing  misery,  he  was 
himself  the   victim   of  artifices    amongst  those   who 


148  POPE. 

surrounded  him.  What  Pope  apprehended  happened. 
The  letters  were  all  published  in  Dublin  and  in  Lon- 
don, the  originals  being  then  only  returned  when  they 
had  done  their  work  of  exposure. 

Such  a  tenor  of  life,  so  constantly  fretted  by  petty 
wrongs,  or  by  leaden  insults,  to  which  only  the  celeb- 
rity of  their  object  lent  force  or  wings,  allowed  little 
opportunity  to  Pope  for  recalling  his  powers  from 
angry  themes,  and  converging  them  upon  others  of 
more  catholic  philosophy.  To  the  last  he  continued  to 
conceal  vipers  beneath  his  flowers  ;  or  rather,  speaking 
proportionastely  to  the  case,  he  continued  to  sheath 
amongst  the  gleaming  but  innocuous  lightnings  of  his 
departing  splendors,  the  thunderbolts  which  blasted  for 
ever.  His  last  appearance  was  his  greatest.  In  1742 
he  published  the  fourth  book  of  the  Dunciad  ;  to  which 
it  has  with  much  reason  been  objected,  that  it  stands  in 
no  obvious  relation  to  the  other  three,  but  which,  taken 
as  a  separate  whole,  is  by  far  the  most  brilliant  and  the 
weightiest  of  his  works.  Pope  was  aware  of  the 
hiatus  between  this  last  book  and  the  rest,  on  which 
account  he  sometimes  called  it  the  greater  Dunciad  ; 
and  it  would  have  been  easy  for  him,  with  a  shallow 
Warburtonian  ingenuity,  to  invent  links  that  might 
have  satisfied  a  mere  verbal  sense  of  connection.  But 
he  disdained  this  puerile  expedient.  The  fact  was, 
and  could  not  be  disguised  from  any  penetrating  eye, 
that  the  poem  was  not  a  pursuit  of  the  former  subjects  ; 
it  had  arisen  spontaneously  at  various  times,  by  looking 
at  the  same  general  theme  of  dulness,  (which,  in 
Pope's  sense,  includes  all  aberrations  of  the  intellect, 
nay,   even    any    defective    equilibrium   amongst    the 


POPE.  149 

faculties,)  under  a  different  angle  of  observation,  and 
from  a  different  centre.  In  this  closing  book,  not  only- 
bad  authors,  as  in  the  other  three,  but  all  abuses  of 
science  or  antiquarian  knowledge,  or  connoisseurship 
in  the  arts,  are  attacked.  Virtuosi,  medalists,  butterfly- 
hunters,  florists,  erring  metaphysicians,  &c.,  are  all 
pierced  through  and  through  as  with  the  shafts  of 
Apollo./  But  the  imperfect  plan  of  the  work  as  to  its 
internal  economy,  no  less  than  its  exterior  relations,  is 
evident  in  many  places ;  and  in  particular  the  whole 
catastrophe  of  the  poem,  if  it  can  be  so  called,  is 
linked  to  the  rest  by  a  most  insufficient  incident.  To 
give  a  closing  grandeur  to  his  work.  Pope  had  con- 
ceived the  idea  of  representing  the  earth  as  lying 
universally  under  the  incubation  of  one  mighty  spirit 
of  dulness;  a  sort  of  millennium,  as  we  may  call  it, 
for  ignorance,  error,  and  stupidhy.  This  would  take 
leave  of  the  reader  with  effect ;  but  how  was  it  to  be 
introduced  ?  at  what  era  ?  under  what  exciting  cause  ? 
As  to  the  eras.  Pope  could  not  settle  that;  unless  it 
were  a  future  era,  the  description  of  it  could  not  be 
delivered  as  a  prophecy;  and,  not  being  prophetic,  it 
would  want  much  of  its  grandeur.  Yet  as  a  part  of 
futurity,  how  is  it  connected  with  our  present  times  ? 
Do  they  and  their  pursuits  lead  to  it  as  a  possibility,  or 
as  a  contingency  upon  certain  habits  which  we  have  it 
in  our  power  to  eradicate,  (in  which  case  this  vision  of 
dulness  has  di,  practical  warning,)  or  is  it  a  mere  neces- 
sity, one  amongst  the  many  changes  attached  to  the 
cycles  of  human  destiny,  or  which  chance  brings 
round  with  the  revolutions  of  its  wheel.?  All  this 
Pope  could  not  determine ;  but  the  exciting  cause  he 


150  POPE. 

has  determined,  and  it  is  preposterously  below  the 
effect.  The  goddess  of  dulness  yawns ;  and  her 
yawn,  which,  after  all,  should  rather  express  the  fact 
and  state  of  universal  dulness  than  its  cause,  produces 
a  change  over  all  nations  tantamount  to  a  long  eclipse. 
Meantime,  with  all  its  defects  of  plan,  the  poem,  as  to 
execution,  is  superior  to  all  which  Pope  has  done  ;  the 
composition  is  much  superior  to  that  of  the  Essay  on 
Man,  and  more  profoundly  poetic.  The  parodies 
drawn  from  Milton,  as  also  in  the  former  books,  have 
a  beauty  and  effect  which  cannot  be  expressed ;  and,  if 
a  young  lady  wished  to  cull  for  her  album  a  passage 
from  all  Pope's  writings,  which,  without  a  trace  of 
irritation  or  acrimony,  should  yet  present  an  exquisite 
gem  of  independent  beauty,  she  could  not  find  another 
passage  equal  to  the  little  story  of  the  florist  and  the 
butterfly-hunter.  They  plead  their  cause  separately 
before  the  throne  of  dulness ;  the  florist  telling  how  he 
had  reared  a  superb  carnation,  which,  in  honor  of  the 
queen,  he  called  Caroline,  when  his  enemy,  pursuing  a 
butterfly  which  settled  on  the  carnation,  in  securing  his 
own  object,  had  destroyed  that  of  the  plaintiff.  The 
defendant  replies  with  equal  beauty ;  and  it  may  cer- 
tainly be  affirmed,  that,  for  brilliancy  of  coloring  and 
the  art  of  poetical  narration,  the  tale  is  not  surpassed 
by  any  in  the  language. 

This  was  the  last  effort  of  Pope  worthy  of  separate 
notice.  He  was  now  decaying  rapidly,  and  sensible  of 
his  own  decay.  His  complaint  was  a  dropsy  of  the 
chest,  and  he  knew  it  to  be  incurable.  Under  these 
circumstances,  his  behavior  was  admirably  philoso- 
phical.    He  employed  himself  in  revising  and  burnish- 


POPE.  151 

ing  all  his  later  works,  as  those  upon  which  he  wisely- 
relied  for  his  reputation  with  future  generations.  In 
this  task  he  was  assisted  by  Dr.  Warburton,  a  new 
literary  friend,  who  had  introduced  himself  to  the 
favorable  notice  of  Pope  about  four  years  before,  by  a 
defence  of  the  Essay  on  Man,  which  Crousaz  had 
attacked,  but  in  general  indirectly  and  ineffectually,  by- 
attacking  it  through  the  blunders  of  a  very  faulty- 
translation.  This  poem,  however,  still  labors,  to 
religious  readers,  under  two  capital  defects.  If  man, 
according  to  Pope,  is  now  so  admirably  placed  in  the 
universal  system  of  things,  that  evil  only  could  result 
from  any  change,  then  it  seems  to  follow,  either  that 
a  fall  of  man  is  inadmissible  ;  or  at  least,  that,  by 
placing  him  in  his  true  centre,  it  had  been  a  blessing 
universally.  The  other  objection  lies  in  this,  that  if 
all  is  right  already,  and  in  this  earthly  station,  then 
one  argument  for  a  future  state,  as  the  scene  in 
which  evil  is  to  be  redressed,  seems  weakened  or 
undermined. 

As  the  weakness  of  Pope  increased,  his  nearest 
friends.  Lord  Bolingbroke,  and  a  few  others,  gathered 
around  him.  The  last  scenes  were  passed  almost  with 
ease  and  tranquillity.  He  dined  in  company  two  days 
before  he  died;  and  on  the  very  day  preceding  his 
death  he  took  an  airing  on  Blackheath.  A  few  morn- 
ings before  he  died,  he  was  found  very  early  in  his 
library  writing  on  the  immortality  of  the  soul.  This 
was  an  effort  of  delirium  ;  and  he  suffered  otherwise 
from  this  affection  of  the  brain,  and  from  inability  to 
think  in  his  closing  hours.  But  his  humanity  and  good- 
ness,  it  was  remarked,  had   survived  his  intellectual 


152  POPE. 

faculties.  He  died  on  the  30th  of  May,  1744  ;  and  so 
quietly,  that  the  attendants  could  not  distinguish  the 
exact  moment  of  his  dissolution. 

We  had  prepared  an  account  of  Pope's  quarrels,  in 
which  we  had  shown  that,  generally,  he  was  not  the 
aggressor;  and  often  was  atrociously  ill  used  before 
he  retorted.  This  service  to  Pope's  memory  we  had 
judged  important,  because  it  is  upon  these  quarrels 
chiefly  that  the  erroneous  opinion  has  built  itself  of 
Pope's  fretfulness  and  irritability.  And  this  unamiable 
feature  of  his  nature,  together  with  a  proneness  to 
petty  manoeuvring,  are  the  main  foibles  that  malice  has 
been  able  to  charge  upon  Pope's  moral  character. 
Yet,  with  no  better  foundation  for  their  malignity  than 
these  doubtful  propensities,  of  which  the  first  perhaps 
was  a  constitutional  defect,  a  defect  of  his  tempera- 
ment rather  than  his  will,  and  the  second  has  been 
much  exaggerated,  many  writers  have  taken  upon 
themselves  to  treat  Pope  as  a  man,  if  not  absolutely 
unprincipled  and  without  moral  sensibility,  yet  as 
mean,  little-minded,  indirect,  splenetic,  vindictive,  and 
morose.  Now  the  difference  between  ourselves  and 
these  writers  is  fundamental.  They  fancy  that  in 
Pope's  character  a  basis  of  ignoble  qualities  was  here 
and  there  slightly  relieved  by  a  few  shining  spots  ;  we, 
on  the  contraiy,  believe  that  in  Pope  lay  a  disposition 
radically  noble  and  generous,  clouded  and  over- 
shadowed by  superficial  foibles,  or,  to  adopt  the  dis- 
tinction of  Shakspeare,  they  see  nothing  but  '  dust  a 
little  gilt,'  and  we  '  gold  a  little  dusted.'  A  very  rapid 
glance  we  will  throw  over  the  general  outline  of  his 
character. 


/>    .  '       ^ 

As  a  friend,  it  is  noticed  em^^^%^lly  by  Martha* 
Blount  and  other  contemporaries,  wfi^^inaaetJbaxe-  had 
the  best  means  of  judging,  that  no  man  was  so  warm- 
hearted, or  so  much  sacrificed  himself  for  others,  as 
Pope ;  and  in  fact  many  of  his  quarrels  grew  out  of 
this  trait  in  his  character.  For  once  that  he  levelled 
his  spear  in  his  own  quarrel,  at  least  twice  he  did  so 
on  behalf  of  his  insulted  parents  or  his  friends.  Pope 
was  also  noticeable  for  the  duration  of  his  friend- 
ships ;  11  some  dropped  him,  but  he  never  any  through- 
out his  life.  And  let  it  be  remembered,  that  amongst 
Pope's  friends  were  the  men  of  most  eminent  talents 
in  those  days ;  so  that  envy  at  least,  or  jealousy  of 
rival  power,  was  assuredly  no  foible  of  his.  In  that 
respect  how  different  from  Addison,  whose  petty 
manoeuvring  against  Pope  proceeded  entirely  from 
malignant  jealousy.  That  Addison  was  more  in  the 
wrong  even  than  has  generally  been  supposed,  and 
Pope  more  thoroughly  innocent  as  well  as  more  gener- 
ous, we  have  the  means  at  a  proper  opportunity  of 
showing  decisively.  As  a  son,  we  need  not  insist  on 
Pope's  preeminent  goodness.  Dean  Swift,  who  had 
lived  for  months  together  at  Twickenham,  declares  that 
he  had  not  only  never  witnessed,  but  had  never  heard 
of  anything  like  it.  As  a  Christian,  Pope  appears  in  a 
truly  estimable  light.  He  found  himself  a  Roman 
Catholic  by  accident  of  birth ;  so  was  his  mother ;  but 
his  father  was  so  upon  personal  conviction  and  conver- 
sion, yet  not  without  extensive  study  of  the  questions 
at  issue.  It  would  have  laid  open  the  road  to  prefer- 
ment, and  preferment  was  otherwise  abundantly  before 
him,  if  Pope  would  have  gone  over  to  the   Protestant 


154  POPE. 

faith.  And  in  his  conscience  he  found  no  obstacle  to 
that  change ;  he  was  a  philosophical  Christian,  intol- 
erant of  nothing  but  intolerance,  a  bigot  only  against 
bigots.  But  he  remained  true  to  his  baptismal  profes- 
sion, partly  on  a  general  principle  of  honor  in  adhering 
to  a  distressed  and  dishonored  party,  but  chiefly  out  of 
reverence  and  affection  to  his  mother.  In  his  relation 
to  women,  Pope  was  amiable  and  gentlemanly  ;  and 
accordingly  was  the  object  of  affectionate  regard  and 
admiration  to  many  of  the  most  accomplished  in  that 
sex.  This  we  mention  especially,  because  we  would 
wish  to  express  our  full  assent  to  the  manly  scorn  with 
which  Mr.  Roscoe  repels  the  libellous  insinuations 
against  Pope  and  Miss  Martha  Blount.  A  more  inno- 
cent connection  we  do  not  believe  ever  existed.  As 
an  author,  Warburton  has  recorded  that  no  man  ever 
displayed  more  candor  or  more  docility  to  criticisms 
offered  in  a  friendly  spirit.  Finally,  we  sum  up  all  in 
saying,  that  Pope  retained  to  the  last  a  true  and  diffu- 
sive benignity  ;  that  this  was  the  quality  which  sur- 
vived all  others,  notwithstanding  the  bitter  trial  which 
his  benignity  must  have  stood  through  life,  and  the 
excitement  to  a  spiteful  reaction  of  feeling  which 
was  continually  pressed  upon  him  by  the  scorn  and 
insult  which  his  deformity  drew  upon  him  from  the 
unworthy. 

But  the  moral  character  of  Pope  is  of  secondary 
interest.  We  are  concerned  with  it  only  as  connected 
with  his  great  intellectual  power.  There  are  three 
errors  which  seem  current  upon  this  subject.  First, 
that  Pope  drew  his  impulses  from  French  literature  ; 
secondly^  that  he  was  a  poet  of  inferior  rank  ;  thirdly. 


POPE. 


155 


that  his  merit  lies  in  superior  *  correctness.'  With 
respect  to  the  first  notion,  it  has  prevailed  by  turns  in 
every  literature.  One  stage  of  society,  in  every 
nation,  brings  men  of  impassioned  minds  to  the  con- 
templation of  manners,  and  of  the  social  affections  of 
man  as  exhibited  in  manners.  With  this  propensity 
cooperates,  no  doubt,  some  degree  of  despondency 
when  looking  at  the  great  models  of  the  literature  who 
have  usually  preoccupied  the  grander  passions,  and 
displayed  their  movements  in  the  earlier  periods  of 
literature.  Now  it  happens  that  the  French,  from  an 
extraordinary  defect  in  the  higher  qualities  of  passion, 
have  attracted  the  notice  of  foreign  nations  chiefly  to 
that  field  of  their  literature,  in  which  the  taste  and 
the  unimpassioned  understanding  preside.  But  in  all 
nations  such  literature  is  a  natural  growth  of  the  mind, 
and  would  arise  equally  if  the  French  literature  had 
never  existed.  The  wits  of  Queen  Anne's  reign,  or 
even  of  Charles  II.'s,  were  not  French  by  their  taste 
or  their  imitation.  Butler  and  Dryden  were  surely  not 
French ;  and  of  Milton  we  need  not  speak ;  as  little 
was  Pope  French,  either  by  his  institution  or  by  his 
models.  Boileau  he  certainly  admired  too  much  ;  and, 
for  the  sake  of  a  poor  parallelism  with  a  passage  about 
Greece  in  Horace,  he  has  falsified  history  in  the  most 
ludicrous  manner,  without  a  shadow  of  countenance 
from  facts,  in  order  to  make  out  that  we,  like  the 
Romans,  received  laws  of  taste  from  those  whom  we 
had  conquered.  But  these  are  insulated  cases  and 
accidents,  not  to  insist  on  his  known  and  most  profound 
admiration,  often  expressed,  for  both  Chaucer,  and 
Shakspeare,  and  Milton.     Secondly,  that  Pope  is  to  be 


156 


POPE. 


classed  as  an  inferior  poet,  has  arisen  purely  from  a 
confusion  between  the  departments  of  poetry  which  he 
cultivated  and  the  merit  of  his  culture.  The  first  place 
must  undoubtedly  be  given  for  ever,  —  it  cannot  be 
refused,  —  to  the  impassioned  movements  of  the  tragic, 
and  to  the  majestic  movements  of  the  epic  muse.  We 
cannot  alter  the  relations  of  things  out  of  favor  to  an 
individual.  But  in  his  own  department,  whether  higher 
or  lower,  that  man  is  supreme  who  has  not  yet  been 
surpassed ;  and  such  a  man  is  Pope.  As  to  the  final 
notion,  first  started  by  Walsh,  and  propagated  by 
Warton,  it  is  the  most  absurd  of  all  the  three  ;  it  is  not 
from  superior  correctness  that  Pope  is  esteemed  more 
correct,  but  because  the  compass  and  sweep  of  his 
performances  lies  more  within  the  range  of  ordinary 
judgments.  Many  questions  that  have  been  raised 
upon  Milton  or  Shakspeare,  questions  relating  to  so 
subtile  a  subject  as  the  flux  and  reflux  of  human 
passion,  lie  far  above  the  region  of  ordinaiy  capacities  ; 
and  the  indeterminateness  or  even  carelessness  of  the 
judgment  is  transferred  by  a  common  confusion  to  its 
objects.  But  waiving  this,  let  us  ask,  what  is  meant  by 
'  correctness  ? '  Correctness  in  what  ?  In  develop- 
ing the  thought?  In  connecting  it,  or  effecting  the 
transitions  ?  In  the  use  of  words  ?  In  the  grammar  ? 
In  the  metre  ?  Under  every  one  of  these  limitations 
of  the  idea,  we  maintain  that  Pope  is  not  distinguished 
by  correctness;  nay,  that,  as  compared  with  Shak- 
speare, he  is  eminently  incorrect.  Produce  us  from 
any  drama  of  Shakspeare  one  of  those  leading  passa- 
ges that  all  men  have  by  heart,  and  show  us  any 
eminent  defect  in  the  very  sinews  of  the  thought.     It 


POPE.  157 

is  impossible ;  defects  there  may  be,  but  they  will 
always  be  found  irrelevant  to  the  main  central  thought, 
or  to  its  expression.  Now  turn  to  Pope  ;  the  first 
striking  passage  which  offers  itself  to  our  memory,  is 
the  famous  character  of  Addison,  ending  thus : 

'  Who  would  not  laugh,  if  such  a  man  there  be, 
Who  but  must  weep  if  Atticus  were  he  1 ' 

Why  must  we  laugh  ?  Because  we  find  a  grotesque 
assembly  of  noble  and  ignoble  qualities.  Very  well ; 
but  why  then  must  wc  weep  ?  Because  this  assem- 
blage is  found  actually  existing  in  an  eminent  man  of 
genius.  Well,  that  is  a  good  reason  for  weeping ;  we 
weep  for  the  degradation  of  human  nature.  But  then 
revolves  the  question,  why  must  we  laugh  ?  Because, 
if  the  belonging  to  a  man  of  genius  were  a  sufficient 
reason  for  weeping,  so  much  we  know  from  the  very 
first.  The  very  first  line  says,  '  Peace  to  all  such. 
But  were  there  one  whose  fires  true  genius  kindles  and 
fair  fame  inspires  ? '  Thus  falls  to  the  ground  the 
whole  antithesis  of  this  famous  character.  We  are  to 
change  our  mood  from  laughter  to  tears  upon  a  sudden 
discovery  that  the  character  belonged  to  a  man  of 
genius ;  and  this  we  had  already  known  from  the 
beginning.  Match  us  this  prodigious  oversight  in 
Shakspeare.  Again,  take  the  Essay  on  Criticism.  It 
is  a  collection  of  independent  maxims,  tied  together 
into  a  fasciculus  by  the  printer,  but  having  no  natural 
order  or  logical  dependency  ;  generally  so  vague  as  to 
mean  nothing.  Like  the  general  rules  of  justice,  &c., 
in  ethics,  to  which  every  man  assents  ;  but  when  the 
question  comes  about  any  practical  case,  is  it  just  ? 
The  opinions  fly  asunder  far  as  the  poles.     And,  what 


158  POPE. 

is  remarkable,  many  of  the  rules  are  violated  by  no 
man  so  often  as  by  Pope,  and  by  Pope  nowhere  so 
often  as  in  this  very  poem.  As  a  single  instance,  he 
proscribes  monosyllabic  lines ;  and  in  no  English 
poem  of  any  pretensions  are  there  so  many  lines  of 
that  class  as  in  this.  We  have  counted  above  a  score, 
and  the  last  line  of  all  is  monosyllabic. 

Not,  therefore,  for  superior  correctness,  but  for 
qualities  the  very  same  as  belong  to  his  most  dis- 
tinguished brethren,  is  Pope  to  be  considered  a  great 
poet;  for  impassioned  thinking,  powerful  description, 
pathetic  reflection,  brilliant  narration.  His  character- 
istic difference  is  simply  that  he  carried  these  powers 
into  a  different  field,  and  moved  chiefly  amongst  the 
social  paths  of  men,  and  viewed  their  characters  as 
operating  through  their  manners.  And  our  obligations 
to  him  arise  chiefly  on  this  ground,  that  having  already, 
in  the  persons  of  earlier  poets,  carried  off  the  palm  in 
all  the  grander  trials  of  intellectual  strength,  for  the 
majesty  of  the  epopee  and  the  impassioned  vehemence 
of  the  tragic  drama,  to  Pope  we  owe  it  that  we  can 
now  claim  an  equal  preeminence  in  the  sportive  and 
aerial  graces  of  the  mock  heroic  and  satiric  muse ; 
that  in  the  Dunciad  we  possess  a  peculiar  form  of 
satire,  in  which  (according  to  a  plan  unattempted  by 
any  other  nation)  we  see  alternately  her  festive  smile 
and  her  gloomiest  scowl ;  that  the  grave  good  sense  of 
the  nation  has  here  found  its  brightest  mirror ;  and, 
finally,  that  through  Pope  the  cycle  of  our  poetry  is 
perfected  and  made  orbicular,  that  from  that  day  we 
might  claim  the  laurel  equally,  whether  for  dignity  or 
grace. 


fL«^ 


NOTES 


Note  1.    Page  101. 

Da.  Johnson,  however,  and  Joseph  Warton,  for  reasons  not  stated, 
have  placed  his  birth  on  the  22d.  To  this  statement,  is  opposed  to 
that  which  comes  from  the  personal  friends  of  Pope,  little  attention 
is  due.  Ruff  head  and  Spence,  upon  such  questions,  must  always  be 
of  higher  authority  than  Johnson  and  Warton,  and  a  fortiori  than 
Bowles.  But  it  ought  not  to  be  concealed,  though  hitherto  unno- 
ticed by  any  person,  that  some  doubt  after  all  remains  whether  any 
of  the  biographers  is  right.  An  anonymous  writer,  contemporary 
with  Pope,  and  evidently  familiar  with  his  personal  history,  declares 
that  he-was  born  on  the  8th  of  June  ;  and  he  connects  it  with  an  event 
that,  having  a  public  and  a  partisan  interest,  (the  birth  of  that 
Prince  of  Wales,  who  was  known  twenty-seven  years  afterwards  as 
the  Pretender,)  would  serve  to  check  his  own  recollections,  and  give 
them  a  collateral  voucher.  It  is  true  he  wrote  for  an  ill-natured 
purpose  ;  but  no  purpose  whatever  could  have  been  promoted  by 
falsifying  this  particular  date.  What  is  still  more  noticeable,  how- 
ever, Pope  himself  puts  a  most  emphatic  negative  upon  all  these 
statements.  In  a  pathetic  letter  to  a  friend,  when  his  attention 
could  not  have  been  wandering,  for  he  is  expressly  insisting  upon  a 
sentiment  which  will  find  an  echo  in  many  a  human  heart,  viz.,  that 
a  birthday,  though  from  habit  usually  celebrated  as  a  festal  day,  too 
often  is  secretly  a  memorial  of  disappointment,  and  an  anniversary 
of  sorrowful  meaning,  he  speaks  of  the  very  day  on  which  he  is  then 
writing  as  his  own  birthday  ;  and  indeed  what  else  could  give  any 
propriety  to  the  passage  ?   Now  the  date  of  this  lettter  is  January  1, 


160  POPE. 

1733.  Surely  Pope  knew  his  own  birthday  better  than  those  who 
have  adopted  a  random  rumor  without  investigation. 

But,  whilst  we  are  upon  this  subject,  we  must  caution  the  readers 
of  Pope  against  too  much  reliance  upon  the  chronological  accuracy 
of  his  editors.  AU  are  scandalously  careless  ;  and  generally  they 
are  faithless.  Many  allusions  are  left  unnoticed,  which  a  very 
little  research  would  have  illustrated  ;  many  facts  are  omitted,  even 
yet  recoverable,  which  are  essential  to  the  just  appreciation  of 
Pope's  satirical  blows ;  and  dates  are  constantly  misstated.  Mr. 
Roscoe  is  the  most  careful  of  Pope's  editors  ;  but  even  he  is  often 
wrong.  For  instance,  he  has  taken  the  trouble  to  write  a  note  upon 
Pope's  humorous  report  to  Lord  Burlington  of  his  Oxford  journey 
on  horseback  with  Lintot ;  and  this  note  involves  a  sheer  impossi- 
bility. The  letter  is  undated,  except  as  to  the  month  ;  and  Mr. 
Roscoe  directs  the  reader  to  supply  1714  as  the  true  date,  which  is  a 
gross  anachronism.  For  a  ludicrous  anecdote  is  there  put  into 
Linton's  mouth,  representing  some  angry  critic,  who  had  been  turn- 
ing over  Pope's  Homer,  with  frequent  pshaws,  as  having  been  pro- 
pitiated, by  Mr.  Lintot's  dinner,  into  a  gentler  feeling  towards  Pope, 
and,  finally,  by  the  mere  effect  of  good  cheer,  without  an  effort  on 
the  publisher's  part,  as  coming  to  a  confession,  that  what  he  ate  and 
what  he  had  been  reading  were  equally  excellent.  But  in  the  year 
1714,  no  par/ of  Pope's  Homer  was  printed;  June,  1715,  was  the 
month  in  which  even  the  subscribers  first  received  the  four  earliest 
books  of  the  Iliad  ;  and  the  public  generally  not  until  July.  This 
we  notice  by  way  of  specimen  ;  in  itself,  or  as  an  error  of  mere 
negligence,  it  would  be  of  little  importance  ;  but  it  is  a  case  to 
which  Mr,  Roscoe  has  expressly  applied  his  own  conjectural  skill, 
and  solicited  the  attention  of  his  reader.  We  may  judge,  therefore, 
of  his  accuracy  in  other  cases  which  he  did  not  think  worthy  of 
examination. 

There  is  another  instance,  presenting  itself  in  every  page,  of 
ignorance  concurring  with  laziness,  on  the  part  of  all  Pope's  editors, 
and  with  the  effect  not  so  properly  of  misleading  as  of  perplexing 
the  general  reader.  Until  Lord  Macclesfield's  bill  for  altering  the 
style  in  the  very  middle  of  the  eighteenth  century,  six  years,  there- 
fore, after  the  death  of  Pope,  there  was  a  custom,  arising  from  the 
collision  between  the  civil  and  ecclesiastical  year,  of  dating  the 
"whole  period  that  lies  between  December  31st  and  March  25th, 
(both  days  exclusively,)  as  belonging  indifferently  to  the  past  or  the 
current  year.  This  peculiarity  had  nothing  to  do  with  the  old  and 
new  style,  but  was,  we  believe,  redressed  by  the  same  act  of  Parlia- 


NOTES 

ment.  Now  in  Pope's  lime  it  was  absolrftely  Decessar^  that  a  man 
should  use  this  double  date,  because  else  he  was  liable  to  be  seri- 
ously misunderstood.  For  instance,  it  was  then  always  said  that 
Charles  I.  had  suffered  on  the  30th  of  January,  164|- ;  and  why? 
Because,  had  the  historian  fixed  the  date  to  what  it  really  was, 
1649,  in  that  case  all  those  (a  very  numerous  class)  who  supposed 
the  year  1649  to  commence  on  Ladyday,  or  March  25,  would  have 
understood  him  to  mean  that  this  event  happened  in  what  we  now 
call  1650,  for  not  until  1650  was  there  any  January  which  they  would 
have  acknowledged  as  belonging  to  1649,  since  they  added  to  the 
year  1648  all  the  days  from  January  1  to  March  24.  On  the  other 
hand,  if  he  had  said  simply  that  Charles  suffered  in  1648,  he  would 
have  been  truly  understood  by  the  class  we  have  just  mentioned  ; 
but  by  another  class,  who  began  the  year  from  the  1st  of  January, 
he  would  have  been  understood  to  mean  what  we  noio  mean  by  the 
year  1643.  There  would  have  been  a  sheer  difference,  not  of  one,  as 
the  reader  might  think  at  first  sight,  but  of  two  entire  years  in  the 
chronology  of  the  two  parties  ;  which  difference,  and  all  possibility 
of  doubt,  is  met  and  remedied  by  the  fractional  date  yf  f  f  ;  for  that 
date  says  in  effect  it  was  1648  to  you  who  do  not  open  the  new  year 
till  Ladyday;  it  was  1649  to  you  who  open  it  from  January  1. 
Thus  much  to  explain  the  real  sense  of  the  case;  and  it  follows 
from  this  explanation,  that  no  part  of  the  year  ever  can  have  the 
fractional  or  double  date  except  the  interval  from  January  1  to 
March  24  inclusively.  And  hence  arises  a  practical  influence,  viz., 
that  the  very  same  reason,  and  no  other,  which  formerly  enjoined 
the  use  of  the  compound  or  fractional  date,  viz.,  the  prevention  of  a 
capital  ambiguity  or  dilemma,  now  enjoins  its  omission.  For  in  our 
day,  when  the  double  opening  of  the  year  is  abolished,  what  sense 
is  there  in  perplexing  a  reader  by  using  a  fraction  which  offers  him 
a  choice  without  directing  him  how  to  choose?  In  fact,  it  is  the 
denominator  of  the  fraction,  if  one  may  so  style  the  lower  figure, 
which  expresses  to  a  modern  eye  the  true  year.  Yet  the  editors  of 
Pope,  as  well  as  many  other  writers,  have  confused  their  readers  by 
this  double  date;  and  why?  Simply  because  they  were  confused 
themselves.  Many  errors  in  literature  of  large  extent  have  arisen 
from  this  confusion.  Thus  it  was  said  properly  enough  in  the  con- 
temporary accounts,  for  instance,  in  Lord  Monmouth's  Memoirs,  that 
Queen  Elizabeth  died  on  the  last  day  of  the  year  1602,  for  she  died 
on  the  241  h  of  March  ;  and  by  a  careful  writer  this  event  would 
have  been  dated  as  March  24,  J|5|.  But  many  writers,  misled 
by  the  phrase  above  cited,  have  asserted  that  James  I.  was  pro- 
11 


162  POPE. 

claimed  on  the  1st  of  January,  1603.  Heber,  Bishop  of  Calcutta, 
again,  has  ruined  the  entire  chronology  of  the  Life  of  Jeremy  Taylor, 
and  unconsciously  vitiated  the  facts,  by  not  understanding  this  frac- 
tional date.  Mr.  Roscoe  even  too  often  leaves  his  readers  to  collect 
the  true  year  as  they  can.  Thus,  e.  g.  at  p.  509,  of  his  Life,  he 
quotes  from  Pope's  letter  to  Warburlon,  in  great  vexation  for  the 
surreptitious  publication  of  his  letters  in  Ireland,  under  date  of 
February  4,  174-^.  But  why  not  have  printed  it  intelligibly  as  1741  ? 
Incidents  there  are  in  most  men's  lives,  which  are  susceptible  of  a 
totally  diiferent  moral  value,  according  as  they  are  dated  in  one  year 
or  another.  That  might  be  a  kind  and  honorable  liberality  in  1740, 
which  would  be  a  fraud  upon  creditors  in  1741.  Exile  to  a  distance 
of  ten  miles  from  London  in  January,  1744,  might  argue,  that  a  man 
was  a  turbulent  citizen,  and  suspected  of  treason  ;  whilst  the  same 
exile  in  January,  1745,  would  simply  argue  that,  as  a  Papist,  he  had 
been  included  amongst  his  whole  body  in  a  general  measure  of  pre- 
caution to  meet  the  public  dangers  of  that  year.  This  explanation 
we  have  thought  it  right  to  make,  both  for  its  extensive  application 
to  all  editions  of  Pope,  and  on  account  of  the  serious  blunders  which 
have  arisen  from  the  case  when  ill  understood  ;  and  because,  in  a 
work  upon  education,  written  jointly  by  Messrs.  Lant  Carpenter  and 
Shephard,  though  generally  men  of  ability  and  learning,  this  whole 
point  is  erroneously  explained. 

Note  2.    Page  105. 
It  is  apparently  with  allusion  to  this  part  of  the  history,  which  he 
would  often  have  heard  from  the  lips  of  his  own  father,  that  Pope 
glances  at  his  uncle's  memory  somewhat  disrcsj>ectfully  in  his  prose 
letter  to  Lord  Harvey. 

Note  3.     Page  105. 

Some  accounts,  however,  say  to  Flanders,  in  which  case,  perhaps, 
Antwerp  or  Brussels  would  have  the  honor  of  his  conversion. 

Note  4.  Page  107. 
This  however  was  not  Twyford,  according  to  an  anonj'mous 
pamphleteer  of  the  times,  but  a  Catholic  seminary  in  Devonshire 
Street,  that  is,  in  the  Bloomsbury  district  of  London  ;  and  the  same 
author  asserts,  that  the  scene  of  his  disgrace,  as  indeed  seems  prob- 
able beforehand,  was  not  the  first,  but  the  last  of  his  arenas  as  a 
schoolboy.     Which  indeed  was  first,  and  which  last,  is  very  unim- 


NOTES.  163 

portant;  but  with  a  view  to  another  point,  which  is  not  without 
interest,  namely,  as  to  the  motive  of  Pope  for  so  bitter  a  lampoon  as 
we  must  suppose  it  to  have  been,  as  well  as  with  regard  to  the  topics 
which  he  used  to  season  it,  this  anoymous  letter  throws  the  only 
light  which  has  been  offered  ;  and  strange  it  is,  that  no  biographer 
of  Pope  should  have  hunted  upon  the  traces  indicated  by  him.  Any 
solution  of  Pope's  virulence,  and  of  the  master's  bitter  retaliation, 
even  as  a  solution,  is  so  far  entitled  to  attention  ;  apart  from  which 
the  mere  straightforwardness  of  this  man's  story,  and  its  minute  cir- 
cumstantiality, weigh  greatly  in  its  favor.  To  our  thinking,  he  un- 
folds the  whole  affair  in  the  simple  explanation,  nowhere  else  to  be 
found,  that  the  master  of  the  school,  the  mean  avenger  of  a  childish 
insult  by  a  bestial  punishment,  was  a  Mr.  Bromley,  one  of  James 
II. 's  Popish  apostates  ;  whilst  the  particular  statements  which  he 
makes  with  respect  to  himself  and  the  young  Duke  of  Norfolk  of 
1700,  as  two  schoolfellows  of  Pope  at  that  time  and  place,  together 
with  his  voluntary  promise  to  come  forward  in  person,  and  verify  his 
account  if  it  should  happen  to  be  challenged, — are  all,  we  repeat,  so 
many  presumptions  in  favor  of  his  veracity.  •  Mr.  Alexander  Pope,' 
says  he,  'before  he  had  been  four  months  at  this  school,  or  was 
able  to  construe  TuUy's  Offices,  employed  his  muse  in  satirizing 
his  master.  It  was  a  libel  of  at  least  one  hundred  verses,  which  (a 
fellow-student  having  given  information  of  il)  was  found  in  his 
pocket ;  and  the  young  satirist  was  soundly  whipped,  and  kept  a 
prisoner  to  his  room  for  seven  days;  whereupon  his  father  fetched 
him  away,  and  I  have  been  told  he  never  went  to  school  more.' 
This  Bromley,  it  has  been  ascertained,  was  the  son  of  a  country 
gentleman  in  Worcestershire,  and  must  have  had  considerable  pros- 
pects at  one  time,  since  it  appears  that  he  had  been  a  gentleman- 
commoner  at  Christ's  Church,  Oxford.  There  is  an  error  in  the 
punctuation  of  the  letter  we  have  just  quoted,  which  affects  the 
sense  in  a  way  very  important  to  the  question  before  us.  Bromley  is 
described  as  '  one  of  King  James's  converts  in  Oxford,  some  years 
after  that  prince's  abdication  ; '  but,  if  this  were  really  so,  he  must 
have  been  a  conscientious  convert.  The  latter  clause  should  be  con- 
nected with  what  follows  :  *  Some  years  after  that  princess  abdica- 
tion he  kept  a  little  seminary ; '  that  is,  when  his  mercenary  views 
in  quitting  his  religion  were  effectually  defeated,  when  the  Boyne 
had  sealed  his  despair,  he  humbled  himself  into  a  petty  schoolmas- 
ter. These  facts  are  interesting,  because  they  suggest  at  once  the 
motive  for  the  merciless  punishment  inflicted  upon  Pope.  His  own 
father  was  a  Papist  like  Bromley,  but  a  sincere  and  honest  Papist, 


164  toPE. 

who  had  borne  double  taxes,  legal  stigmas,  and  public  hatred  for 
conscience'  sake.  His  contempt  was  habitually  pointed  at  those 
who  tampered  with  religion  for  interested  purposes.  His  son  inher- 
ited these  upright  feelings.  And  we  may  easily  guess  what  would 
be  the  bitter  sting  of  any  satire  he  would  write  on  Bromley.  Such 
a  topic  was  too  true  to  be  forgiven,  and  too  keenly  barbed  by  Brom- 
ley's conscience.  By  the  way,  this  writer,  like  ourselves,  reads  in 
this  juvenile  adventure  a  prefiguration  of  Pope's  satirical  destiny. 

Notes.  Page  113. 
That  is,  Sheffield,  and,  legally  speaking,  of  Buckinghamshire. 
For  he  would  not  take  the  title  of  Buckingham,  under  a  fear  that 
there  was  lurking  somewhere  or  other  a  claim  to  that  title  amongst 
the  connections  of  the  Villiers  family.  He  was  a  pompous  grandee, 
who  lived  in  uneasy  splendor,  and,  as  a  writer,  most  extravagantly 
overrated  ;  accordingly,  he  is  now  forgotten.  Such  was  his  vanity 
and  his  ridiculous  mania  for  allying  himself  with  royalty,  that  he 
first  of  all  had  the  presumption  to  court  the  Princess  (afterwards 
Queen)  Anne.  Being  rejected,  he  then  offered  himself  to  the  ille- 
gitimate daughter  of  James  H.,  by  the  daughter  of  Sir  Charles 
Sedley.    She  was  as  ostentatious  as  himself,  and  accepted  him. 

Note  6.    Page  118. 
Meantime,  the  felicities  of  this  translation  are  at  times  perfectly 
astonishing  ;  and  it  would  be  scarcely  possible   to  express  more 
nervously  or  amply  the  words, 

'Jurisque  secundi 

Ambitus  impaiiens,  er  summo  dulcius  unum 

Stare  loco,' 

than  this  child  of  fourteen  has  done  in  the  following  couplet,  which, 
most  judiciously,  by  reversing  the  two  clauses,  gains  the  power  of 
fusing  them  into  conneciion  : 

'And  impotent  desire  to  reign  alone. 
That  scorns  the  dull  reversion  of  a  throne.' 

But  the  passage  for  which  beyond  all  others  we  must  make  room,  is 
a  series  of  eight  lines,  corresponding  to  six  in  the  original ;  and  this 
for  two  reasons  :  First,  Because  Dr.  Joseph  Warton  has  deliberately 
asserted,  that  in  our  whole  literature,  '  we  have  scarcely  eight  more 
beautiful  lines  than  these  ; '  and  though  few  readers  will  subscribe 
to  so  sweeping  a  judgment,  yet  certainly  these  must  be  wonderful 


NOTES.  165 

lines  for  a  boy,  which  could  challenge  such  commendation  from  an 
experienced  polyhistor  of  infinite  reading.  Secondly,  Because  the 
lines  contain  a  night-scene.  Now  it  must  be  well  known  to  many 
readers,  that  the  famous  night-scene  in  the  Iliad,  so  familiar  to  every 
schoolboy,  has  been  made  the  subject,  for  the  last  thirty  years,  of 
severe,  and,  in  many  respects,  of  just  criticisms.  This  description 
will  therefore  have  a  double  interest  by  comparison  ;  whilst,  what- 
ever may  be  thought  of  either  taken  separately  for  itself,  considered 
as  a  translation,  this  which  we  now  quote  is  as  true  to  Statius  as 
the  other  is  undoubtedly  faithless  to  Homer: 

*  Jamque  per  emeriti  surg-ens  covjinia  Phoebi 
Titanis,  late  mundo  subveda  silenti 
Rorifera  gelidum  tenuaverat  aera  higa. 
Jam  peciides  volucrcsque  tacent :  jam  somnus  avaris 
Inserpit  curis,  pronusque  per  aera  nutat, 
Grata  labor atce  referens  oblivia  vUcb.' 

Theb.  i.  336-341. 

'  'T  was  now  the  time  when  Phoebus  yields  to  night, 
And  rising  Cynthia  sheds  her  silver  light ; 
Wide  o'er  the  world  in  solemn  pomp  she  drew 
Her  airy  chariot  hung  with  pearly  dew. 
All  birds  and  beasts  lie  hush'd.     Sleep  steals  away 
The  wild  desires  of  men  and  toils  of  day  ; 
And  brings,  descending  through  the  silent  air, 
A  sweet  forgetfulness  of  human  care.' 

Note  7.    Page  119. 
One  writer  of  that  age  says,  in  Cheapside  ;  but  probably  this  dif- 
ference arose  from  contemplating  Lombard  Street  as  a  prolongation 
of  Cheapside. 

Note  8.  Page  124. 
Dr.  Johnson  said,  that  all  he  could  discover  about  Mr.  Cromwell, 
was  the  fact  of  his  going  a  hunting  in  a  tie-wig  ;  but  Gay  has  added 
another  fact  to  Dr.  Johnson's  by  calling  him,  'honest  hatless  Crom- 
well with  red  breeches.'  This  epithet  has  puzzled  the  commenta- 
tors; but  its  import  is  obvious  enough.  Cromwell,  as  we  learn  from 
more  than  one  person,  was  anxious  to  be  considered  a  fine  gentle- 
man, and  devoted  to  women.  Now  it  was  long  the  custom  in  that 
age  for  such  persons,  when  walking  with  ladies,  to  carry  their  hats 


166  POPE. 

in  their  hand.    Louis  XV.  used  to  ride  by  the  side  of  Madame  de 
Pompadour  hat  in  hand. 

Note  9.  Page  128. 
It  is  strange  indeed  to  find,  not  only  that  Pope  had  so  frequently 
kept  rough  copies  of  his  own  letters,  and  that  he  thought  so  well  of 
them  as  to  repeat  the  same  letter  to  different  persons,  as  in  the  case 
of  the  two  lovers  killed  by  lightning,  or  even  to  two  sisters,  Martha 
and  Therese  Blount,  (  who  were  sure  to  communicate  their  letters,) 
but  that  even  Swift  had  retained  copies  of  his. 

Note  10.  Page  139. 
The  word  undertake  had  not  yet  lost  the  meaning  of  Shakspeare's 
age,  in  which  it  was  understood  to  describe  those  cases  where,  the 
labor  being  of  a  miscellaneous  kind,  some  person  in  chief  offered  to 
overlook  and  conduct  the  whole,  whether  with  or  without  personal 
labor.  The  modern  undertaker,  limited  to  the  care  of  funerals,  was 
then  but  one  of  numerous  cases  to  which  the  term  was  applied. 

Note  11.  Page  153. 
We  may  illustrate  this  feature  in  the  behavior  of  Pope  to  Savage. 
When  all  else  forsook  him,  when  all  beside  pleaded  the  insults  of 
Savage  for  withdrawing  their  subscriptions,  Pope  sent  his  in  advance. 
And  when  Savage  had  insulted  him  also,  arrogantly  commanding 
him  never  *  to  presume  to  interfere  or  meddle  in  his  affairs,'  dignity 
and  self-respect  made  Pope  obedient  to  these  orders,  except  when 
there  was  an  occasion  of  serving  Savage.  On  his  second  visit  to 
Bristol,  (when  he  returned  from  Glamorganshire,)  Savage  had  been 
thrown  into  the  jail  of  the  city.  One  person  only  interested  himself 
for  this  hopeless  profligate,  and  was  causing  an  inquiry  to  be  made 
about  his  debts  at  the  time  Savage  died.  So  much  Dr.  Johnson 
admits  ;  but  he,forg-ets  to  mention  the  name  of  this  long-suffering 
friend.  It  was  Pope.  Meantime,  let  us  not  be  supposed  to  believe 
the  lying  legend  of  Savage  ;  he  was  doubtless  no  son  of  Lady 
Macclesfield's,  but  an  impostor,  who  would  not  be  sent  to  the 
tread-mill. 


CHARLES    LAMB. 


It  sounds  paradoxical,  but  is  not  so  in  a  bad  sense, 
to  say  that  in  every  literature  of  large  compass  some 
authors  will  be  found  to  rest  much  of  the  interest  which 
surrounds  them  on  their  essential  won-popularity.  They 
are  good  for  the  very  reason  that  they  are  not  in  con- 
formity to  the  current  taste.  They  interest  because  to 
the  world  they  are  not  interesting.  They  attract  by 
means  of  their  repulsion.  Not  as  though  it  could  sepa- 
rately furnish  a  reason  for  loving  a  book,  that  the 
majority  of  men  had  found  it  repulsive.  Prima  facie, 
it  must  suggest  some  presumption  against  a  book, 
that  it  has  failed  to  gain  public  attention.  To  have 
roused  hostility  indeed,  to  have  kindled  a  feud  against 
its  own  principles  or  its  temper,  may  happen  to  be  a 
good  sign.  That  argues  power.  Hatred  may  be  prom- 
ising. The  deepest  revolutions  of  mind  sometimes 
begin  in  hatred.  But  simply  to  have  left  a  reader  un- 
impressed, is  in  itself  a  neutral  result,  from  which 
the  inference  is  doubtful.  Yet  even  that,  even  simple 
failure  to  impress,  may  happen  at  times  to  be  a  result 


168  CHARLES    LAMB. 

from  positive  powers  in  a  writer,  from  special  originali- 
ties, such  as  rarely  reflect  themselves  in  the  mirror  of 
the  ordinaiy  understanding.  It  seems  little  to  be  per- 
ceived, how  much  the  great  scriptural  ^  idea  of  the 
worldly  and  the  unworldly  is  found  to  emerge  in  litera- 
ture as  well  as  in  life.  In  reality  the  very  same  com- 
binations of  moral  qualities,  infinitely  varied,  which 
compose  the  harsh  physiognomy  of  what  we  call  world- 
liness  in  the  living  groups  of  life,  must  unavoidably 
present  themselves  in  books.  A  library  divides  into 
sections  of  worldly  and  unworldly,  even  as  a  crowd  of 
men  divides  into  that  same  majority  and  minority.  The 
world  has  an  instinct  for  recognising  its  own  ;  and  re- 
coils from  certain  qualities  when  exemplified  in  books, 
with  the  same  disgust  or  defective  sympathy  as  would 
have  governed  it  in  real  life.  From  qualities  for  instance 
of  childlike  simplicity,  of  shy  profundity,  or  of  inspired 
self-communion,  the  world  does  and  must  turn  away  its 
face  towards  grosser,  bolder,  more  determined,  or  more 
intelligible  expressions  of  character  and  intellect ;  and 
not  otherwise  in  literature,  nor  at  all  less  in  literature, 
than  it  does  in  the  realities  of  life. 

Charles  Lamb,  if  any  ever  loas,  is  amongst  the  class 
here  contemplated  ;  he,  if  any  ever  has,  ranks  amongst 
writers  whose  works  are  destined  to  be  forever  unpopu- 
lar, and  yet  for  ever  interesting  ;  interesting,  moreover, 
by  means  of  those  very  qualities  which  guarantee  their 
non-popularity.  The  same  qualities  which  will  be 
found  forbidding  to  the  worldly  and  the  thoughtless, 
which  will  be  found  insipid  to  many  even  amongst 
robust  and  powerful  minds,  are  exactly  those  which  will 
continue  to  command  a  select  audience  in  every  gene- 


CHARLES    LAMB.  169 

ration.  The  prose  essays,  under  the  signature  of  EUa^ 
form  the  most  delightful  section  amongst  Lamb's  works. 
They  traverse  a  peculiar  field  of  observation,  seques- 
tered from  general  interest ;  and  they  are  composed  in 
a  spirit  too  delicate  and  unobtrusive  to  catch  the  ear  of 
the  noisy  crowd,  clamoring  for  strong  sensations.  But 
this  retiring  delicacy  itself,  the  pensiveness  chequered 
by  gleams  of  the  fanciful,  and  the  humor  that  is  touched 
with  cross-lights  of  pathos,  together  with  the  picturesque 
quaintness  of  the  objects  casually  described,  whether 
men,  or  things,  or  usages,  and,  in  the  rear  of  all  this, 
the  constant  recurrence  to  ancient  recollections  and  to 
decaying  forms  of  household  life,  as  things  retiring  be- 
fore the  tumult  of  new  and  revolutionary  generations ; 
these  traits  in  combination  communicate  to  the  papers  a 
grace  and  strength  of  originality  which  nothing  in  any 
literature  approaches,  whether  for  degree  or  kind  of  ex- 
cellence, except  the  ynost  felicitous  papers  of  Addison, 
such  as  those  on  Sir  Roger  de  Coverley,  and  some  others 
in  the  same  vein  of  composition.  They  resemble  Addi- 
son's papers  also  in  the  diction,  which  is  natural  and 
idiomatic,  even  to  carelessness.  They  are  equally 
faithful  to  the  truth  of  nature  ;  and  in  this  only  they 
differ  remarkably  —  that  the  sketches  of  Ella  reflect 
the  stamp  and  impress  of  the  writer's  own  character, 
whereas  in  all  those  of  Addison  the  personal  peculiari- 
ties of  the  delineator  (though  known  to  the  reader  from 
the  beginning  through  the  account  of  the  club)  are 
nearly  quiescent.  Now  and  then  they  are  recalled  into 
a  momentary  notice,  but  they  do  not  act,  or  at  all 
modify  his  pictures  of  Sir  Roger  or  Will  Wimble. 
They   are    slightly   and    amiably   eccentric ;    but   the 


7 
^ 


170  CHAELES    LAMB. 

Spectator  himself,  in  describing  them,  takes  the  station 
of  an  ordinary  observer. 

Everywhere,  indeed,  in  the  writings  of  Lamb,  and 
not  merely  in  his  Elia,  the  character  of  the  writer 
cooperates  in  an  under  current  to  the  effect  of  the  thing 
written.  To  understand  in  the  fullest  sense  either  the 
gayety  or  the  tenderness  of  a  particular  passage,  you 
must  have  some  insight  into  the  peculiar  bias  of  the 
writer's  mind,  whether  native  and  original,  or  impressed 
gradually  by  the  accidents  of  situation ;  whether  simply 
r  developed  out  of  predispositions  by  the  action  of  life,  or 
violently  scorched  into  the  constitution  by  some  fierce 
fever  of  calamity.  There  is  in  modern  literature  a 
whole  class  of  writers,  though  not  a  large  one,  standing 
within  the  same  category  ;  some  marked  originality  of 
character  in  the  writer  becomes  a  coefficient  with  what 
he  says  to  a  common  result ;  you  must  sympathize  with 
this  personality  in  the  author  before  you  can  appre- 
ciate the  most  significant  parts  of  his  views.  In  most 
books  the  writer  figures  as  a  mere  abstraction,  without 
sex  or  age  or  local  station,  whom  the  rea,der  banishes 
from  his  thoughts.  What  is  written  seems  to  proceed 
from  a  blank  intellect,  not  from  a  man  clothed  with 
fleshly  peculiarities  and  differences.  These  peculiari- 
ties and  differences  neither  do,  nor  (generally  speaking) 
could  intermingle  with  the  texture  of  the  thoughts  so 
as  to  modify  their  force  or  their  direction.  In  such 
books,  and  they  form  the  vast  majority,  there  is  noth- 
ing to  be  found  or  to  be  looked  for  beyond  the  direct 
objective.  {Sit  venia  verbo  I)  But,  in  a  small  section 
of  books,  the  objective  in  the  thought  becomes  conflu- 
ent with  the  subjective  in  the  thinker  —  the  two  forces 


^^C,J^^  CHARLES    LAMB.  171 

'  unite  for  a  joint  product ;  and  fully  to  enjoy  the  pro- 
duct, or  fully  to  apprehend  either  element,  both  must 
be  known.  It  is  singular,  and  worth  inquiring  into,  for 
the  reason  that  the  Greek  and  Roman  literature  had  no 
such  books.  Timon  of  Athens,  or  Diogenes,  one  may 
conceive  qualified  for  this  mode  of  authorship,  had 
journalism  existed  to  rouse  them  in  those  days  ;  their 
'  articles '  would  no  doubt  have  been  fearfully  caustic. 
But,  as  they  failed  to  produce  anything,  and  Lucian  in 
an  after  age  is  scarcely  characteristic  enough  for  the 
purpose,  perhaps  we  may  pronounce  Rabelais  and 
Montaigne  the  earliest  of  writers  in  the  class  described. 
In  the  century  following  theirSj  came  Sir  Thomas 
Brown,  and  immediately  after  him  La  Fontaine.  Then 
come  Swift,  Sterne,  with  others  less  distinguished  ;  in 
Germany,  Hippel,  the  friend  of  Kant,  Harmann,  the 
obscure  ;  and  the  greatest  of  the  whole  body  —  John 
Paul  Fr.  Richter.  In  him,  from  the  strength  and  de- 
terminateness  of  his  nature  as  well  as  from  the  great 
extent  of  his  writing,  the  philosophy  of  this  interaction 
between  the  author  as  a  human  agency  and  his  theme 
as  an  intellectual  reagency,  might  best  be  studied. 
From  him  might  be  derived  the  largest  number  of  cases 
illustrating  boldly  this  absorption  of  the  universal  into 
the  concrete  —  of  the  pure  intellect  into  the  human 
nature  of  the  author.  But  nowhere  could  illustrations 
be  found  more  interesting  —  shy,  delicate,  evanescent — 
shy  as  lightning,  delicate  and  evanescent  as  the  colored 
pencillings  on  a  frosty  night  from  the  northern  lights, 
than  in  the  better  parts  of  Lamb. 

To  appreciate  Lamb,  therefore,  it  is  requisite  that  his 
character  and   temperament  should  be  understood  in 


172  CHARLES    LAMB. 

their  coyest  and  most  wayward  features.  A  capital 
defect  it  would  be  if  these  could  not  be  gathered  silently 
from  Lamb's  works  themselves.  It  would  be  a  fatal 
mode  of  dependency  upon  an  alien  and  separable  acci- 
dent if  they  needed  an  external  commentary.  But 
they  do  not.  The  syllables  lurk  up  and  down  the 
writings  of  Lamb  which  decipher  his  eccentric  nature. 
His  character  lies  there  dispersed  in  anagram  ;  and  to 
any  attentive  reader  the  regathering  and  restoration  of 
the  total  word  from  its  scattered  parts  is  inevitable  with- 
out an  effort.  Still  it  is  always  a  satisfaction  in  knowing 
a  result,  to  know  also  its  why  and  how  ;  and  in  so  far 
as  every  character  is  likely  to  be  modified  by  the  par- 
ticular experience,  sad  or  joyous,  through  which  the 
life  has  travelled,  it  is  a  good  contribution  towards  the 
knowledge  of  that  resulting  character  as  a  whole  to 
have  a  sketch  of  that  particular  experience.  What 
trials  did  it  impose  ?  What  energies  did  it  task  ?  What 
temptations  did  it  unfold  ?  These  calls  upon  the  moral 
powers,  which,  in  music  so  stormy,  many  a  life  is 
doomed  to  hear,  how  were  they  faced  ?  The  character 
in  a  capital  degree  moulds  oftentimes  the  life,  but  the 
life  always  in  a  subordinate  degree  moulds  the  charac- 
ter. And  the  character  being  in  this  case  of  Lamb  so 
much  of  a  key  to  the  writings,  it  becomes  important 
that  the  life  should  be  traced,  however  briefly,  as  a  key 
to  the  character. 

That  is  one  reason  for  detaining  the  reader  with  some 
slight  record  of  Lamb's  career.  Such  a  record  by 
preference  and  of  right  belongs  to  a  case  where  the 
intellectual  display,  which  is  the  sole  ground  of  any 
public  interest  at  all  in  the  man,  has  been  intensely 


V 


CHARLES    LAMB.  173 

modified  by  the  humanities  and  moral  personalities 
distinguishing  the  subject.  We  read  a  Physiology,  and 
need  no  information  as  to  the  life  and  conversation  of 
its  author ;  a  meditative  poem  becomes  far  better  under- 
stood by  the  light  of  such  information ;  but  a  work  of 
genial  and  at  the  same  time  eccentric  sentiment,  wan- 
dering upon  untrodden  paths,  is  barely  intelligible  with- 
out it.  There  is  a  good  reason  for  arresting  judgment 
on  the  writer,  that  the  court  may  receive  evidence  on 
the  life  of  the  man.  But  there  is  another  reason,  and,  in 
any  other  place,  a  better  ;  which  reason  lies  in  the  ex- 
traordinary value  of  the  life  considered  separately  for 
itself.  Logically,  it  is  not  allowable  to  say  that  here  ; 
and,  considering  the  principal  purpose  of  this  paper, 
any  possible  independent  value  of  the  life  must  rank 
as  a  better  reason  for  reporting  it.  Since,  in  a  case 
where  the  original  object  is  professedly  to  estimate  the 
writings  of  a  man,  whatever  promises  to  further  that 
object  must,  merely  by  that  tendency,  have,  in  relation 
to  that  place,  a  momentary  advantage  which  it  would 
lose  if  valued  upon  a  more  abstract  scale.  Liberated 
from  this  casual  office  of  throwing  light  upon  a  book — 
raised  to  its  grander  station  of  a  solemn  deposition  to 
the  moral  capacities  of  man  in  conflict  with  calamity  — 
viewed  as  a  return  made  into  the  chanceries  of  heaven 

—  upon  an  issue  directed  from  that  court  to  try  the 
amount  of  power  lodged  in  a  poor  desolate  pair  of  hu- 
man creatures  for  facing  the  very  anarchy  of  storms 

—  this  obscure  life  of  the  two  Lambs,  brother  and  sis- 
ter, (for  the  two  lives  were  one  life,)  rises  into  a  gran- 
deur that  is  not  paralleled  once  in  a  generation. 

Rich,  indeed,  in  moral  instruction  was  the  life  of 


174  CHARLES  LAMB. 

Charles  T  amb  ;  and  perhaps  in  one  chief  result  it  offers 
to  the  thoughtful  observer  a  lesson  of  consolation  that  is 

]  awful,  and  of  hope  that  ought  to  be  immortal,  viz.,  in 
the  record  which  it  furnishes,  that  by  meekness  of  sub- 

1    mission,  and  by  earnest  conflict  with  evil,  in  the  spirit 

'  of  chec  rfulness  it  is  possible  ultimately  to  disarm  or  to 
blunt  the  very  heaviest  of  curses  —  even  the  curse  of 
lunacy.  Had  it  been  whispered,  in  hours  of  infancy,  to 
Lamb,  by  the  angel  who  stood  by  his  cradle  —  'Thou, 
and  the  sister  that  walks  by  ten  years  before  thee,  shall 
be  through  life,  each  to  each,  the  solitary  fountain  of 
comfort ;  and  except  it  be  from  this  fountain  of  mutual 
love,  except  it  be  as  brother  and  sister,  ye  shall  not 
taste  the  cup  of  peace  on  earth ! '  —  here,  if  there  was 
sorrow  in  reversion,  there  was  also  consolation. 

But  what  funeral  swamps  would  have  instantly  in- 
gulfed this  consolation,  had  some  meddling  fiend  pro- 
longed the  revelation,  and,  holding  up  the  curtain  from 
the  sad  feature  a  little   longer,  had  said  scornfully  — 

?  '  Peace  on  earth  !  Peace  for  you  two,  Charles  and 
Mary  Lamb !  What  peace  is  possible  under  the  curse 
which  even  now  is  gathering  against  your  heads  ?  Is 
there  peace  on  earth  for  the  lunatic  —  peace  for  the  pa- 
renticide —  peace  for  the  girl  that,  without  warning,  and 
without  time  granted  for  a  penitential  cry  to  Heaven, 
sends  her  mother  to  the  last  audit  ? '  And  then,  with- 
out treachery,  speaking  bare  truth,  this  prophet  of  woe 

^  might    have    added  —  'Thou,   also,    thyself,  Charles 

Lamb,  thou  in  thy  proper  person,  shalt  enter  the  skirts 

.  of  this  dreadful  hail-storm ;  even  thou  shalt  taste  the 

secrets  of  lunacy,  and  enter  as  a  captive  its  house  of 

bondage  ;  whilst  over  thy  sister  the  accursed  scorpion 


CHARLES    LAMB?^^^^^U  i\.  i»ljl 

shall  hang  suspended  through  life,  like  death  hanging 
over  the  beds  of  hospitals,  striking  at  times,  but  more 
often  threatening  to  strike  :  or  withdrawing  its  instant 
menaces  only  to  lay  bare  her  mind  more  bitterly  to  the 
persecutions  of  a  haunted  memory  ! '  Considering  the 
nature  of  the  calamity,  in  the  first  place  ;  considering, 
in  the  second  place,  its  lifelong  duration  ;  and,  in  the 
last  place,  considering  the  quality  of  the  resistance  by 
which  it  was  met,  and  under  what  circumstances  of 
humble  resources  in  money  or  friends  —  we  have  come 
to  the  deliberate  judgment,  that  the  whole  range  of 
history  scarcely  presents  a  more  affecting  spectacle  of 
(^perpetual  sorrow,  humiliation,  or  conflict,,  and  that  was 
supported  to  the  end,  (that  is,  through  forty  years,)  with 
more  resignation,  or  with  more  absolute  victory. 

Charles  Lamb  was  born  in  February  of  the  year 
17/5.  His  immediate  descent  was  humble;  for  his 
father,  though  on  one  particular  occasion  civilly  de- 
scribed as  a  *  scrivener,'  was  in  reality  a  domestic 
servant  to  Mr.  Salt  —  a  bencher  (and  therefore  a  bar- 
rister of  some  standing)  in  the  Inner  Temple.  John 
Lamb  the  father  belonged  by  birth  to  Lincoln  ;  from 
which  city,  being  transferred  to  London  whilst  yet  a 
boy,  he  entered  the  service  of  Mr.  Salt  without  delay  ; 
and  apparently  from  this  period  throughout  his  life 
continued  in  this  good  man's  household  to  support  the 
honorable  relation  of  a  Roman  client  to  his  patronus^ 
much  more  than  that  of  a  mercenary  servant  to  a  tran- 
sient and  capricious  master.  The  terms  on  which  he 
seems  to  live  with  the  family  of  the  Lambs,  argue  a 
kindness  and  a  liberality  of  nature  on  both  sides.  John 
Lamb  recommended  himself  as  an    attendant  by  the 


176  CHARLES    LAMB. 

versatility  of  his  accomplishments ;  and  Mr.  Salt,  beifig 
a  widower  without  children,  which  means  in  effect  an 
old  bachelor,  naturally  valued  that  encyclopaedic  range 
of  dexterity  which  made  his  house  independent  of  ex- 
ternal aid  for  every  mode  of  service.  To  kill  one's 
own  mutton  is  but  an  operose  way  of  arriving  at  a 
dinner,  and  often  a  more  costly  way ;  whereas  to 
combine  one's  own  carpenter,  locksmith,  hair-dresser, 
groom,  &c.,  all  in  one  man's  person,  —  to  have  a 
Robinson  Crusoe,  up  to  all  emergencies  of  life,  always 
in  waiting, —  is  a  luxury  of  the  highest  class  for  one 
who  values  his  ease. 

A  consultation  is  held  more  freely  with  a  man  familiar 
to  one's  eye,  and  more  profitably  with  a  man  aware  of 
one's  peculiar  habits.  And  another  advantage  from 
such  an  arrangement  is,  that  one  gets  any  little  altera- 
tion or  repair  executed  on  the  spot.  To  hear  is  to  obey, 
and  by  an  inversion  of  Pope's  rule  — 

'  One  always  is,  and  never  to  be,  blest.' 

People  of  one  sole  accomplishment,  like  the  homo 
unius  libri,  are  usually  within  that  narrow  circle  dis- 
agreeably perfect,  and  therefore  apt  to  be  arrogant. 
People  who  can  do  all  things,  usually  do  every  one  of 
them  ill  ;  and  living  in  a  constant  effort  to  deny  this 
too  palpable  fact  they  become  irritably  vain.  But  Mr. 
Lamb  the  elder  seems  to  have  been  bent  on  perfection. 
He  did  all  things ;  he  did  them  all  well ;  and  yet  was 
neither  gloomily  arrogant  nor  testily  vain.  And  being 
conscious  apparently  that  all  mechanic  excellences 
tend  to  illiberal  results,  unless  counteracted  by  per- 
petual sacrifices  to  the  muses,  he  went  so  far  as  to 


CHARLES    LAMB.  177 

cultivate  poetry  ;  he  even  printed  his  poems,  and  were 
we  possessed  of  a  copy,  (which  we  are  not^  nor  proba- 
bly is  the  Vatican,)  it  would  give  us  pleasure  at  this 
point  to  digress  for  a  moment,  and  to  cut  them  up, 
purely  on  considerations  of  respect  to  the  author's 
memory.  It  is  hardly  to  be  supposed  that  they  did  not 
really  merit  castigation  ;  and  we  should  best  show  the 
sincerity  of  our  respect  for  Mr.  Lamb,  senior,  in  all 
those  cases  where  we  could  conscientiously  profess 
respect,  by  an  unlimited  application  of  the  knout  in  the 
cases  where  we  could  not. 

The  whole  family  of  the  Lambs  seems  to  have  won 
from  Mr.  Salt  the  consideration  which  is  granted  to 
humble  friends  ;  and  from  acquaintances  nearer  to  their 
own  standing,  to  have  won  a  tenderness  of  esteem  such 
as  is  granted  to  decayed  gentry.  Yet  naturally,  the 
social  rank  of  the  parents,  as  people  still  living,  must 
have  operated  disadvantageously  for  the  children.  It 
is  hard,  even  for  the  practised  philosopher  to  distin- 
guish aristocratic  graces  of  manner,  and  capacities  of 
delicate  feeling,  in  people  whose  very  hearth  and  dress 
bear  witness  to  the  servile  humility  of  their  station. 
Yet  such  distinctions  as  wild  gifts  of  nature,  timidly  and 
half-unconsciously  asserted  themselves  in  the  unpre- 
tending Lambs.  Already  in  their  favor  there  existed  a 
silent  privilege  analogous  to  the  famous  one  of  Lord 
Kinsale.  He,  by  special  grant  from  the  crown,  is 
allowed,  when  standing  before  the  king,  to  forget  that 
he  is  not  himself  a  king  ;  the  bearer  of  that  peerage, 
through  all  generations,  has  the  privilege  of  wearing  his 
hat  in  the  royal  presence.  By  a  general  though  tacit 
concession  of  the  same  nature,  the  rising  generation  of 
12 


1 


178  CHARLES  LAMB. 

the  Lambs,  John  and  Charles,  the  two  sons,  and  Mary- 
Lamb,  the  only  daughter,  were  permitted  to  forget  that 
their  grandmother  had  been  a  housekeeper  for  sixty- 
years,  and  that  their  father  had  worn  a  livery.  Charles 
Lamb,  individually  was  so  entirely  humble,  and  so 
careless  of  social  distinctions,  that  he  has  taken  pleasure 
in  recurring  to  these  very  facts  in  the  family  records 
amongst  the  most  genial  of  his  Elia  recollections.  He 
only  continued  to  remember,  without  shame,  and  with 
a  peculiar  tenderness,  these  badges  of  plebeian  rank, 
when  everybody  else,  amongst  the  few  survivors  that 
could  have  known  of  their  existence,  had  long  dismissed 
them  from  their  thoughts. 

Probably,  through  Mr.  Salt's  interest,  Charles  Lamb, 
in  the  autumn  qf  1782,  when  he  wanted  something 
more  than  four  months  of  completing  his  eighth  year, 
received  a  presentation  to  the  magnificent  school  of 
Christ's  Hospital.  The  late  Dr.  Arnold,  when  con- 
trasting the  school  of  his  own  boyish  experience, 
Winchester,  with  Rugby,  the  school  confided  to  his 
management,  found  nothing  so  much  to  regret  in  the 
circumstances  of  the  latter  as  its  forlorn  condition  with 
respect  to  historical  traditions.  Wherever  these  were 
wanting,  and  supposing  the  school  of  sufficient  magni- 
tude, it  occurred  to  Dr.  Arnold  that  something  of  a 
compensatory  effect  for  impressing  the  imagination 
might  be  obtained  by  connecting  the  school  with  the 
nation  through  the  link  of  annual  prizes  issuing  from 
the  exchequer.  An  official  basis  of  national  patron- 
age might  prove  a  substitute  for  an  antiquarian  or 
ancestral  basis.  Happily  for  the  great  educational 
foundations  of  London,  none  of  them  is  in  the  naked 


CHARLES    LAMB.  179 

condition  of  Rugby.  Westminster,  St.  Paul's,  Mer- 
chant Tailors',  the  Charter-house,  &c.,  are  all  crowned 
with  historical  recollections ;  and  Christ's  Hospital, 
besides  the  original  honors  of  its  foundation,  so  fitted 
to  a  consecrated  place  in  a  youthful  imagination  —  an 
asylum  for  boy-students,  provided  by  a  boy-king  — 
innocent,  religious,  prematurely  wise,  and  prematurely 
called  away  from  earth  —  has  also  a  mode  of  perpetual 
connection  with  the.  state.  It  enjoys,  therefore,  hoth 
of  Dr.  Arnold's  advantages.  Indeed,  all  the  great 
foundation  schools  of  London,  bearing  in  their  very 
codes  of  organization  the  impress  of  a  double  function 
—  viz.,  the  conservation  of  sound  learning  and  of  pure 
religion  —  wear  something  of  a  monastic  or  cloisteral 
character  in  their  aspect  and  usages,  which  is  peculiarly 
impressive,  and  even  pathetic,  amidst  the  uproars  of  a 
capital  the  most  colossal  and  tumultuous  upon  earth. 

Here  Lamb  remained  until  his  fifteenth  year,  which 
year  threw  him  on  the  world,  and  brought  him  along- 
side the  golden  dawn  of  the  French  Revdution.  Here 
he  learned  a  little  elementary  Greek,  and  of  Latin 
more  than  a  little  ;  for  the  Latin  notes  to  Mr.  Gary  (of 
Dante  celebrity)  though  brief,  are  sufficient  to  reveal  a 
true  sense  of  what  is  graceful  and  idiomatic  in  Ladnity. 
I  We  say  this,  who  have  studied  that  subject  more  than 
most  men.  It  is  not.  that  Lamb  would  have  found  it  an 
easy  task  to  compose  a  long  paper  in  Latin  —  nobody 
can  find  it  easy  to  do  what  he  has  no  motive  for  habitu- 
ally practising  ;  but  a  single  sentence  of  Latin  wearing 
the  secret  countersign  of  the  'sweet  Roman  hand,' 
ascertains  sufficiently  that,  in  reading  Latin  classics,  a 
man  feels  and   comprehends   their  peculiar  force  or 


180  CHARLES    LAMB. 

beauty.  That  is  enough.  It  is  requisite  to  a  man's 
expansion  of  mind  that  he  should  make  acquaintance 
with  a  literature  so  radically  differing  from  all  modern 
literature  as  is  the  Latin.  It  is  not  requisite  that  he 
should  practise  Latin  composition.  Here,  therefore, 
Lamb  obtained  in  sufficient  perfection  one  priceless 
accomplishment,  which  even  singly  throws  a  graceful 
air  of  liberality  over  aH  the  rest  of  a  man's  attainments: 
having  rarely  any  pecuniary  value,  it  challenges  the 
more  attention  to  its  intellectual  value.  Here  also 
Lamb  commenced  the  friendships  of  his  life ;  and,  of 
all  which  he  formed,  he  lost  none.  Here  it  was,  as  the 
consummation  and  crown  of  his  advantages  from  the 
time-honored   hospital,  that  he    came  to  know   '  Poor 

S.    T»   ^«       Tov  ^avaaaiorrax ov . 

Until  1796,  it  is  probable  that  he  lost  sight  of  Cole- 
ridge, who  was  then  occupied  with  Cambridge,  having 
VP*     been  transferred  thither  as  a  '•  Grecian'  from  the  house 
^  fl,i^    of  Christ  Church.      The    year  1796,  was  a   year  of 
p  change  and  fearful  calamity  for  Charles  Lamb.     On 
5^  J-  that  year  revolved  the  wheels  of  his  afterlife.     During 
'^  '"^  -nhe  three  years  succeeding  to  his  school  days,  he  had 
^>i^^   held  a  clerkship   in  the  South  Sea  House.     In  1795, 
J.*'  ^  he  was  transferred  to  the  India  House.     As  a  junior 
//      clerk,  he  could  not  receive  more  than  a  slender  salary; 
\         but  even  this  was  important  to  the  support  of  his  par- 
ents and  sister.      They  lived  together  in  lodgings  near 
Hoi  born  ;  and  in  the  spring  of  1796,  Miss  Lamb,  (hav- 
ing previously  shown  signs  of  lunacy  at  intervals,)  in  a 
sudden  paroxysm  of  her  disease,  seized  a  knife  from 
the  dinner  table,  and   stabbed  her   mother,  who  died 
upon  the  spot.     A  coroner's  inquest  easily  ascertained 


CHARLES    LAMB.  181 

the  nature  of  a  case  which  was  transparent  in  all  its 
circumstances,  and  never  for  a  moment  indecisive  as 
regarded  the  medical  symptoms.  The  poor  young 
lady  was  transferred  to  the  establishment  for  lunatics 
at  Hoxton.  She  soon  recovered,  we  believe ;  but  her 
relapses  were  as  sudden  as  her  recoveries,  and  she 
continued  through  life  to  revisit,  for  periods  of  uncer- 
tain seclusion,  this  house  of  woe.  This  calamity  of  his 
fireside,  followed  soon  after  by  the  death  of  his  father, 
who  had  for  some  time  been  in  a  state  of  imbecility, 
determined  the  future  destiny  of  Lamb.  Apprehend- 
ing, with  the  perfect  grief  of  perfect  love,  that  his  sis- 
ter's fate  was  sealed  for  life  —  viewing  her  as  his  own 
greatest  benefactress,  which  she  really  had  been  through 
her  advantage  by  ten  years  of  age  —  yielding  with  im- 
passioned readiness  to  the  depth  of  his  fraternal  affec- 
tion, what  at  any  rate  he  would  have  yielded  to  the 
sanctities  of  duty  as  interpreted  by  his  own  conscience 
—  he  resolved  forever  to  resign  all  thoughts  of  marriage 
with  a  young  lady  whom  he  loved,  forever  to  abandon 
all  ambitious  prospects  that  might  have  tempted  him 
into  uncertainties,  humbly  to  content  himself  with  the 
certainties  of  his  Indian  clerkship,  to  dedicate  himself^ 
for  the  future  to  the  care  of  his  desolate  and  prostrate  * 
sister,  and  to  leave  the  rest  to  God.  These  sacrifices 
he  made  in  no  hurry  or  tumult,  but  deliberately,  and  in 
religious  tranquillity.  These  sacrifices  were  accepted 
in  heaven  —  and  even  on  this  earth  they./mtZ  their 
reward.  She,  for  whom  he  gave  up  all,  in  turn  gave 
up  all  for  him.  She  devoted  herself  to  his  comfort. 
Many  times  she  returned  to  the  lunatic  establishment, 
but  many  times  she   was   restored  to  illuminate  the 


\ 


182  CHAELES   LAMB. 

household  hearth  for  Mm ;  and  of  the  happiness  which 
for  forty  years  and  more  he  Had,  no  hour  seemed  true 
that  was  not  derived  from  her.  Henceforward,  there- 
fore, until  he  was  emancipated  by  the  noble  generosity 
of  the  East  India  Directors,  Lamb's  time,  for  nine-and- 
twenty  years,  was  given  to  the  India  House. 

'  O  fortunati  nimium,  sua  si  bona  norint,'  is  appli- 
cable to  more  people  than  ^agricolce.^  Clerks  of  the 
India  House  are  as  blind  to  their  own  advantages  as 
the  blindest  of  ploughmen.  Lamb  was  summoned,  it  is 
true,  through  the  larger  and  more  genial  section  of  his 
life,  to  the  drudgery  of  a  copying  clerk  —  making  con- 
fidential entries  into  mighty  folios,  on  the  subject  of 
calicoes  and  muslins.  By  this  means,  whether  he 
would  or  not,  he  became  gradually  the  author  of  a" 
great  '  serial '  work,  in  a  frightful  number  of  volumes, 
on  as  dry  a  department  of  literature  as  the  children  of 
the  great  desert  could  have  suggested.  Nobody,  he 
must  have  felt,  was  ever  likely  to  study  this  great  work 
of  his,  not  even  Dr.  Dryasdust.  He  had  written  in 
vain,  which  is  not  pleasant  to  know.  There  would  be 
no  second  edition  called  for  by  a  discerning  public  in 
Leadenhall  Street ;  not  a  chance  of  that.  And  con- 
sequently the  opera  omnia  of  Lamb,  drawn  up  in  a 
hideous  battalion,  at  the  cost  of  labor  so  enormous, 
would  be  known  only  to  certain  families  of  spiders  in 
one  generation,  and  of  rats  in  the  next.  Such  a  labor 
of  Sysyphus,  —  the  rolling  up  a  ponderous  stone  to  the 
summit  of  a  hill  only  that  it  might  roll  back  again 
by  the  gravitation  of  its  own  dulness,  —  seems  a  bad 
employment  for  a  man  of  genius  in  his  meridian 
energies.     And  yet,  perhaps   not.     Perhaps  the  col- 


>  CHARLES   LAMB.  183 

lective  wisdom  of  Europe  could  not  have  devised  for 
Lamb  a  more  favorable  condition  of  toil  than  this  very- 
India  House  clerkship.  His  works  (his  Leadenhall 
street  works)  were  certainly  not  read ;  popular  they 
could  not  be,  for  they  were  not  read  by  anybody  ;  but 
then,  to  balance  that^  they  were  not  reviewed.  His 
folios  were  of  that  order,  which  (in  Cowper's  words, 
'  not  even  critics  criticise.'  is  that  nothing  ?  Is  it  no 
happiness  to  escape  the  hands  of  scoundrel  reviewers  } 
Many  of  us  escape  being  read  ;  the  worshipful  reviewer 
does  not  find  time  to  read  a  line  of  us  ;  but  we  do  not 
for  that  reason  escape  being  criticised,  *  shown  up,' 
and  martyred.  The  list  of  errata  again,  committed  by 
Lamb,  was  probably  of  a  magnitude  to  alarm  any  pos- 
sible compositor;  and  yet  these  errata  will  never  be 
known  to  mankind.  They  are  dead  and  buried.  They 
have  been  cut  off  prematurely  ;  and  for  any  effect  upon 
their  generation,  might  as  well  never  have  existed. 
Then  the  returns,  in  a  pecuniary  sense,  from  these 
folios  —  how  important  were  they  !  It  is  not  common, 
certainly,  to  write  folios ;  but  neither  is  it  common  to 
draw  a  steady  income  of  from  300Z.  to  400Z.  per  an- 
num from  volumes  of  any  size.  This  will  be  admitted  ; 
but  would  it  not  have  been  better  to  draw  the  income 
without  the  toil }  Doubtless  it  would  always  be  more 
agreeable  to  have  the  rose  without  the  thorn.  But  in 
the  case  before  us,  taken  with  all  its  circumstances, 
we  deny  that  the  toil  is  truly  typified  as  a  thorn  ;  so 
far  from  being  a  thorn  in  Lamb's  daily  life,  on  the  con- 
trary, it  was  a  second  rose  ingrafted  upon  the  original 
rose  of  the  income,  that  he  had  to  earn  it  by  a  moderate 
but  continued  exertion.     Holidays,  in  a  national  estab- 


184  CHARLES    LAMB.  ^ 

lishment  so  great  as  the  India  House,  and  in  our  too 
fervid  period,  naturally  could  not  be  frequent ;  yet  all 
great  English  corporations  are  gracious  masters,  and 
indulgences  of  this  nature  could  be  obtained  on  a  special 
application.  Not  to  count  upon  these  accidents  of  favor, 
we  find  that  the  regular  toil  of  those  in  Lamb's  situa- 
tion, began  at  ten  in  the  morning  and  ended  as  the 
clock  struck  four  in  the  afternoon.  Six  hours  composed 
the  daily  contribution  of  labor,  that  is  precisely  one 
fourth  part  of  the  total  day.  Only  that,  as  Sunday  was 
exempted,  the  rigorous  expression  of  the  quota  was  one 
fourth  of  six-sevenths,  which  makes  six  twenty-eighths 
and  not  six-twenty-fourths  of  the  total  time.  Less  toil 
than  this  would  hardly  have  availed  to  deepen  the  sense 
of  value  in  that  large  part  of  the  time  still  remaining 
disposable.  Had  there  been  any  resumption  whatever 
of  labor  in  the  evening,  though  but  for  half  an  hour, 
that  one  encroachment  upon  the  broad  continuous  area 
of  the  eighteen  free  hours  would  have  killed  the  tran- 
quillity of  the  whole  day,  by  sowing  it  (so  to  speak) 
with  intermitting  anxieties  —  anxieties  that,  like  tides, 
would  still  be  rising  and  falling.  Whereas  now,  at  the 
early  hour  of  four,  when  daylight  is  yet  lingering  in 
the  air,  even  at  the  dead  of  winter,  in  "the  latitude  of 
London,  and  when  the  enjoying  section  of  the  day  is 
barely  commencing,  everything  is  left  which  a  man 
would  care  to  retain.  A  mere  dilettante  or  amateur 
student,  having  no  mercenary  interest  concerned,  would, 
upon  a  refinement  of  luxury  —  would,  upon  choice, 
give  up  so  much  time  to  study,  were  it  only  to  sharpen 
the  value  of  what  remained  for  pleasure.  And  thus 
the  only  difference  between  the  scheme  of  the  India 


CHARLES    LAMB.  1^ 

House  distributing  his  time  for  Lamb,  and  the  scheme 
of  a  wise  voluptuary  distributing  his  time  for  himself, 
lay,  not  in  the  amount  of  time  deducted  from  enjoy- 
ment, but  in  the  particular  mode  of  appropriating  that 
deduction.  An  intellectual  appropriation  of  the  time, 
though  casually  fatiguing,  must  have  pleasures  of  its 
own ;  pleasures  denied  to  a  task  so  mechanic  and  so 
monotonous  as  that  of  reiterating  endless  records  of 
sales  or  consignments  not  essentially  varying  from  each 
other.  True  ;  it  is  pleasanter  to  pursue  an  intellectual 
study  than  to  make  entries  in  a  ledger.  But  even  an 
intellectual  toil  is  toil ;  few  people  can  support  it  for 
more  than  six  hours  in  a  day.  And  the  only  question, 
therefore,  after  all,  is,  at  what  period  of  the  day  a  man 
would  prefer  taking  this  pleasure  of  study.  Now,  upon 
that  point,  as  regards  the  case  of  Lamb,  there  is  no 
opening  for  doubt.  He,  amongst  his  Popular  Fallacies^ 
admirably  illustrates  the  necessity  of  evening  and  artifi- 
cial lights  to  the  prosperity  of  studies.  After  exposing, 
with  the  perfection  of  fun,  the  savage  unsociality  of 
those  elder  ancestors  who  lived  (if  life  it  was)  before 
lamp-light  was  invented,  showing  that  'jokes  came 
in  with  candles,'  since  '  what  repartees  could  have 
passed  '  when  people  were  '  grumbling  at  one  another 
in  the  dark,'  and  '  when  you  must  have  felt  about  for 
a  smile,  and  handled  a  neighbor's  cheek  to  be  sure  that 
he  understood  it  ? '  —  he  goes  on  to  say,  *  This  accounts 
for  the  seriousness  of  the  elder  poetry,'  viz.,  because 
they  had  no  candle-light.  Even  eating  he  objects  to  as 
a  very  imperfect  thing  in  the  dark;  you  are  not  con- 
vinced that  a  dish  tastes  as  it  should  do  by  the  promise 
of  its  name,  if  you  dine  in  the  twilight  without  candles. 


186  CHARLES   LAMB. 

Seeing  is  believing.  '  The  senses  absolutely  give  and 
take  reciprocally.'  The  sight  guarantees  the  taste. 
For  instance,  '  Can  you  tell  pork  from  veal  in  the 
dark,  or  distinguish  Sherries  from  pure  Malaga  > '  To 
all  enjoyments  whatsoever  candles  are  indispensable  as 
an  adjunct ;  but,  as  to  reading,  '  there  is,'  says  Lamb, 
'  absolutely  no  such  thing  but  by  a  candle.  We  have 
tried  the  affectation  of  a  book  at  noon-day  in  gardens, 
but  it  was  labor  thrown  away.  It  is  a  mockery,  all  that 
is  reported  of  the  influential  Phoebus.  No  true  poem 
ever  owed  its  birth  to  the  sun's  light.  The  mild 
internal  light,  that  reveals  the  fine  shapings  of  poetry, 
like  fires  on  the  domestic  hearth,  goes  out  in  the  sun- 
shine. Milton's  morning  hymn  in  Paradise,  we  would 
hold  a  good  wager,  was  penned  at  midnight ;  and  Tay- 
lor's rich  description  of  a  sunrise  smells  decidedly  of 
the  taper.'  This  view  of  evening  and  candle-light  as 
involved  in  literature  may  seem  no  more  than  a  pleas- 
ant extravaganza ;  and  no  doubt  it  is  in  the  nature  of 
such  gayeties  to  travel  a  little  into  exaggeration,  but 
substantially  it  is  certain  that  Lamb's  feelings  pointed 
habitually  in  the  direction  here  indicated.  His  literary 
studies,  whether  taking  the  color  of  tasks  or  diversions, 
courted  the  aid  of  evening,  which,  by  means  of  phys- 
ical weariness,  produces  a  more  luxurious  state  of  re- 
pose than  belongs  to  the  labor  hours  of  day,  and  courted 
the  aid  of  lamp-light,  which,  as  Lord  Bacon  remarked, 
gives  a  gorgeousness  to  human  pomps  and  pleasures, 
such  as  would  be  vainly  sought  from  the  homeliness 
of  daylight.  The  hours,  therefore,  which  were  with- 
drawn from  his  own  control  by  the  India  House, 
happened   to  be  exactly  that  part  of  the  day  which 


CHARLES    LAMB.  187 

Lamb   least  valued,   and  could  least  have  turned  to 
account. 

The  account  given  of  Lamb's  friends,  of  those  whom 
he  endeavored  to  love  because  he  admired  them,  or  to 
esteem  intellectually  because  he  loved  them  personally, 
is  too  much  colored  for  general  acquiescence  by  Ser- 
geant Talfourd's  own  early  prepossessions.    It  is  natural 
that  an  intellectual  man  like  the  Sergeant,  personally 
made  known  in  youth  to   people,  whom  from  child- 
hood he  had  regarded  as  powers  in  the  ideal  world,  and 
in  some  instances    as    representing   the   eternities    of 
human   speculation,    since   their   names   had   perhaps 
dawned  upon  his  mind  in  concurrence  with  the  very 
earliest  suggestion  of  topics  which  they  had  treated, 
should  overrate  their  intrinsic  grandeur.     Hazlitt  ac- 
cordingly is  styled  '  The  great  thinker.'     But  had  he 
been  such  potentially,  there  was  an  absolute  bar  to  his 
achievement  of  that  station  in  act  and  consummation. 
No  man  can  be  a  great  thinker  in  our  days  upon  large 
and  elaborate  questions  without  being  also  a  great  stu- 
dent.    To  think  profoundly,  it  is  indispensable  that  a 
man  should  have  read  down  to  his  own  starting  point, 
and  have  read  as  a  collating  student  to  the  particular 
stage  at  which  he  himself  takes  up  the  subject.     At 
this  moment,  for  instance,  how  could  geology  be'treated 
otherwise  than  childishly  by  one  who  should  rely  upon 
the  encyclopaedias  of  1800  ?  or  comparative  physiology 
by  the  most  ingenious  of  men  unacquainted  with  Mar- 
shall Hall,  and  with  the  apocalyptic  glimpses  of  secrets 
unfolding  under  the  hands  of  Professor  Owen  ?    In  such 
a  condition  of  undisciplined  thinking,  the  ablest  man 
thinks  to  no  purpose.     He  lingers  upon  parts  of  the 


188  CHARLES    LAMB. 

^  inquiry  that  have  lost  the  importance  which  once  they 
had,  under  imperfect  charts  of  the  subject;  he  wastes 
his  strength  upon  problems  that  have  become  obsolete  ; 
he  loses  his  way  in  paths  that  are  not  in  the  line  of 
direction  upon  which  the  improved  speculation  is  mov- 
ing ;  or  he  gives  narrow  conjectural  solutions  of  diffi- 
culties that  have  long  since  received  sure  and  com- 
prehensive ones.  It  is  as  if  a  man  should  in  these  days 
attempt  to  colonize,  and  yet,  through  inertia  or  through 
ignorance,  should  leave  behind  him  all  modern  resources 
of  chemistry,  of  chemical  agriculture,  or  of  steam- 
power.  Hazlitt  had  read  nothing.  Unacquainted  with 
Grecian  philosophy,  with  Scholastic  philosophy,  and 
with  the  recomposition  of  these  philosophies  in  the 
looms  of  Germany  during  the  last  sixty  and  odd  years, 
trusting  merely  to  the  unrestrained  instincts  of  keen 
mother-wit  —  whence  should  Hazlitt  have  had  the  ma- 
terials for  great  thinking?  It  is  through  the  collation 
of  many  abortive  voyages  to  polar  regions  that  a  man 
gains  his  first  chance  of  entering  the  polar  basin,  or  of 
running  ahead  on  the  true  line  of  approach  to  it.  The 
very  reason  for  Hazlitt's  defect  in  eloquence  as  a  lec- 
turer, is  sufficient  also  as  a  reason  why  he  could  not 
have  been  a  comprehensive  thinker.  '  He  was  not 
eloquent,'  says  the  Sergeant, '  in  the  true  sense  of  the 
term.'  But  why  ^  Because  it  seems  '  his  thoughts 
were  too  weighty  to  be  moved  along  by  the  shallow 
stream  of  feeling  which  an  evening's  excitement  can 
rouse,'  —  an  explanation  which  leaves  us  in  doubt 
whether  Hazlitt  forfeited  his  chance  of  eloquence  by 
accommodating  himself  to  this  evening's  excitement,  or 
by  gloomily  resisting  it.    Our  own  explanation  is  differ- 


CHA'RLES    LAMB.  189 

ent;  Hazlitt  was  not  eloquent,  because  he  was  discon- 
tinuous. No  man  can  be  eloquent  whose  thoughts  are 
abrupt,  insulated,  capricious,  and  (to  borrow  an  impres- 
sive word  from  Coleridge)  non-sequacious.  Eloquence 
resides  not  in  separate  or  fractional  ideas,  but  in  the 
relations  of  manifold  ideas,  and  in  the  mode  of  their 
evolution  from  each  other.  It  is  not  indeed  enough 
that  the  ideas  should  be  many,  and  their  relations 
coherent;  the  main  condition  lies  in  the  key  of  the 
evolution,  in  the  law  of  the  succession.  The  elements 
are  nothing  without  the  atmosphere  that  moulds,  and 
the  dynamic  forces  that  combine.  Now  Hazlitt's  bril- 
liancy is  seen  chiefly  in  separate  splinterings  of  phrase 
or  image  which  throw  upon  the  eye  a  virtreous  scintilla- 
tion for  a  moment,  but  spread  no  deep  suflTusions  of 
color,  and  distribute  no  masses  of  mighty  shadow.  A 
flash,  a  solitary  flash,  and  all  is  gone.  Rhetoric,  accord- 
ing to  its  quality,  stands  in  many  degrees  of  relation  to 
the  permanences  of  truth;  and  all  rhetoric,  like  all 
flesh,  is  partly  unreal,  and  the  glory  of  both  is  fleeting. 
Even  the  mighty  rhetoric  of  Sir  Thomas  Brown,  or 
Jeremy  Taylor,  to  whom  only  it  has  been  granted  to 
open  the  trumpet-stop  on  that  great  organ  of  passion, 
oftentimes  leaves  behind  it  the  sense  of  sadness  which 
belongs  to  beautiful  apparitions  starting  out  of  darkness 
upon  the  morbid  eye,  only  to  be  reclaimed  by  darkness 
in  the  instant  of  their  birth,  or  which  belongs  to 
pageantries  in  the  clouds.  But  if  all  rhetoric  is  a  mode 
of  pyrotechny,  and  all  pyrotechnics  are  by  necessity 
fugacious,  yet  even  in  these  frail  pomps,  there  are 
many  degrees  of  frailty.  Some  fireworks  require  an 
hour's  duration  for  the  expansion  of  their  glory;  others, 


190  CHARLES    LAMB. 

as  if  formed  from  fulminating  powder,  expire  in  the 
very  act  of  birth.  Precisely  on  that  scale  of  duration 
and  of  power  stand  the  glitterings  of  rhetoric  that  are 
not  worked  into  the  texture,  but  washed  on  from  the 
outside.  Hazlitt's  thoughts  were  of  the  same  fractured 
and  discontinuous  order  as  his  illustrative  images  — 
seldom  or  never  self-diffusive  ;  and  that  is  a  sufficient 
argument  that  he  had  never  cultivated  philosophic 
thinking. 

Not,  however,  to  conceal  any  part  of  the  truth,  we 
are  bound  to  acknowledge  that  Lamb  thought  otherwise 
on  this  point,  manifesting  what  seemed  to  us  an  extrav- 
agant admiration  of  Hazlitt,  and  perhaps  even  in  part 
for  that  very  glitter  which  we  are  denouncing  —  at  least 
he  did  so  in  conversation  with  ourselves.  But,  on 
the  other  hand,  as  this  conversation  travelled  a  little 
into  the  tone  of  a  disputation,  and  our  frost  on  this  point 
might  seem  to  justify  some  undue  fervor  by  way  of 
balance,  it  is  very  possible  that  Lamb  did  not  speak  his 
absolute  and  most  dispassionate  judgment.  And  yet 
again,  if  he  did^  may  we,  with  all  reverence  for  Lamb's 
exquisite  genius,  have  permission  to  say  —  that  his  own 
constitution  of  intellect  sinned  by  this  veiy  habit  of  dis- 
continuity. It  was  a  habit  of  mind  not  unlikely  to  be 
cherished  by  his  habits  "of  life.  Amongst  these  habits 
was  the  excess  of  his  social  kindness.  He  scorned  so 
much  to  deny  his  company  and  his  redundant  hospi- 
tality to  any  man  who  manifested  a  wish  for  either  by 
calling  upon  him,  that  he  almost  seemed  to  think  it  a 
criminality  in  himself  if,  by  accident,  he  really  was 
from  home  on  your  visit,  rather  than  by  possibility  a 
negligence  in  you,  that  had  not  forewarned  him  of  your 


I      JrSJ^'/^  CHAKLES   LAMB.  191 

intention.  All  his  life,  from  this  and  other  causes,  he 
must  have  read  in  the  spirit  of  one  liable  to  sudden 
interruption;  like  a'v dragoon,  in  fact,  reading  with  one 
foot  in  the  stirrup,  when  expecting  momentarily  a 
summons  to  mount  for  action.  In  such  situations,  read- 
ing by  snatches,  and  by  intervals  of  precarious  leisure, 
people  form  the  habit  of  seeking  and  unduly  valuing 
condensations  of  the  meaning,  where  in  reality  the 
truth  suffers  by  this  short-hand  exhibition,  or  else  they 
demand  too  vivid  illustrations  of  the  meaning.  Lord 
Chesterfield  himself,  so  brilliant  a  man  by  nature, 
already  therefore  making  a  morbid  estimate  of  bril- 
liancy, and  so  hurried  throughout  his  life  as  a  public 
man,  read  under  this  double  coercion  for  craving  instan- 
taneous effects.  At  one  period,  his  only  time  for  read- 
ing was  in  the  morning,  whilst  under  the  hands  of  his 
hair-dresser ;  compelled  to  take  the  hastiest  of  flying 
shots  at  his  author,  naturally  he  demanded  a  very  con- 
spicuous mark  to  fire  at..  But  the  author  could  not,  in 
so  brief  a  space,  be  always  sure  to  crowd  any  very 
prominent  objects  on  the  eye,  unless  by  being  auda- 
ciously oracular  and  peremptory  as  regarded  the  senti- 
ment, or  flashy  in  excess  as  regarded  its  expression. 
'Come  now,  my  friend,'  was  Lord  Chesterfield's 
morning  adjuration  to  his  author ;  '  come  now,  cut  it 
short  —  do  n't  prose  —  do  n't  hum  and  haw.'  The 
author  had  doubtless  no  ambition  to  enter  his  name  on 
the  honorable  and  ancient  roll  of  gentlemen  prosers ; 
probably  he  conceived  himself  not  at  all  tainted  with 
the  asthmatic  infirmity  of  humming  and  hawing ;  but 
as  to  '  cutting  it  short,'  how  could  he  be  sure  of  meet- 
ing his  lordship's  expectations  in  that  point,  unless  by 


192  CHARLES   LAMB. 

dismissing  the  limitations  that  might  be  requisite  to  fit 
the  idea  for  use,  or  the  adjuncts  that  might  be  requisite  to 
integrate  its  truth,  or  the  final  consequences  that  might 
involve  some  deep  arriere  pensee,  which,  coming  last 
in  the  succession,  might  oftentimes  be  calculated  to  lie 
deepest  on  the  mind.  To  be  lawfully  and  usefully- 
brilliant  after  this  rapid  fashion,  a  man  must  come  for- 
ward as  a  refresher  of  old  truths,  where  Ms  suppres- 
sions are  supplied  by  the  reader's  memory  ;  not  as  an 
expounder  of  new  truths,  where  oftentimes  a  dislocated 
fraction  of  the  true  is  more  dangerous  than  the  false 
itself. 

To  read  therefore  habitually,  by  hurried  instalments, 
has  this  bad  tendency  —  that  it  is  likely  to  found  a  taste 
for  modes  of  composition  too  artificially  irritating,  and 
to  disturb  the  equilibrium  of  the  judgment  in  relation  to 
the  colorings  of  style.  Lamb,  however,  whose  consti- 
tution of  mind  was  even  ideally  sound  in  reference  to 
the  natural,  the  simple,  the  genuine,  might  seem  of  all 
men  least  liable  to  a  taint  in  this  direction.  And  un- 
doubtedly he  was  so,  as  regarded  those  modes  of  beauty 
which  nature  had  specially  qualified  him  for  appre- 
hending. Else,  and  in  relation  to  other  modes  of 
beauty,  where  his  sense  of  the  true,  and  of  its  distinc- 
tion from  the  spurious,  had  been  an  acquired  sense,  it 
is  impossible  for  us  to  hide  from  ourselves  —  that  not 
through  habits  only,  not  through  stress  of  injurious 
accidents  only,  but  by  original  structure  and  tempera- 
ment of  mind.  Lamb  had  a  bias  towards  those  very- 
defects  on  which  rested  the  startling  characteristics  of 
style  which  we  have  been  noticing.  He  himself,  we 
fear,  not  bribed  by  indulgent  feelings  to  another,  not 


|p      9^^  CHARLES    LAMB. ^193 

moved  by  friendship,  but  by  native  tendency,  shrank 
fy         from   the   continuous,   from    the    sustained,  from   the 
elaborate. 

The  elaborate,  indeed,  without  which  much  truth  and 
beauty  must  perish  in  germ,  was  byname  the  object  of 
his  invectives.  The  instances  are  many,  in  his  own 
beautiful  essays,  where  he  literally  collapses,  literally 
sinks  away  from  openings  suddenly  offering  themselves 
to  flights  of  pathos  or  solemnity  in  direct  prosecution 
of  his  own  theme.  On  any  such  summons  where  an 
ascending  impulse,  and  an  untired  pinion  were  required, 
he  refuses  himself  (to  use  military  language)  invaria- 
bly. The  least  observing  reader  of  Elia  cannot  have 
failed  to  notice  that  the  most  felicitous  passages  always 
accomplish  their  circuit  in  a  few  sentences.  The  gyra- 
tion within  which  the  sentiment  wheels,  no  matter  of 
what  kind  it  may  be,  is  always  the  shortest  possible. 
It  does  not  prolong  itself,  and  it  does  not  repeat  itself. 
But  in  fact,  other  features  in  Lamb's  mind  would  have 
argued  this  feature  by  analogy,  had  we  by  accident 
been  left  unaware  of  it  directly.  It  is  not  by  chance, 
or  without  a  deep  ground  in  his  nature,  coinmon  to  all 
,  V  his  qualities,  both  affirmative  and  negative,  that  Lamb 
)r  y''  had  an  insensibility  to  music  more  absolute  than  can 
J^  j  have  been  often  shared  by  any  human  creature,  or 
perhaps  than  was  ever  before  acknowledged  so  can- 
]  didly.  The  sense  of  music, —  as  a  pleasurable  sense,  or 
as  any  sense  at  all  other  than  of  certain  unmeaning  and 
impertinent  differences  in  respect  to  high  and  low, 
sharp  or  flat, —  was  utterly  obliterated  as  with  a  sponge 
by  nature  herself  from  Lamb's  organization.  It  was  a 
corollary,  from  the  same  large  substratum  in  his  nature, 
13 


194  CHARLES     LAMB. 

that   Lamb  had  no  sense  of  the  rhythmical   in   prose 
compositions.     Rhythmus,  or  pomp  of  cadence,  or  so- 
norous'ascent  of  clauses,  in  the  structure  of  sentences, 
were  effects  of  art  as  much  thrown  away  upon  him  as 
the  voice  of  the  charmer  upon  the   deaf  adder.     We  . 
ourselves,  occupying  the  very  station  of  polar  opposi-  \ 
tion  to  that  of  Lamb,  being  as   morbidly,  perhaps,  in 
the  one  excess  as  he  in  the  other,  naturally  detected  \ 
this  omission  in  Lamb's  nature  at  an  early  stage  of  our 
acquaintance.     Not  the  fabled  Regulus  with  his  eye- 
lids torn  away,  and  his  uncurtained  eye-balls  exposed 
to  the  noon-tide  glare  of  a  Carthaginian  sun,  could  have 
shrieked  with  more  anguish  of  recoil  from  torture  than 
we  from  certain  sentences  and  periods  in  which  Lamb 
perceived  no  fault  at  all.     Pomp,  in  our  apprehension,' 
was  an  idea  of  two  categories  ;  the  pompous  might  be 
spurious,  but  it  might  also  be  genuine.     It  is  well  to 
love  the  simple  —  we  love  it ;  nor  is  there  any  opposition 
at  all  between  that  and  the  very  glory  of  pomp.     But, 
as  we  once  put  the  case  to  Lamb,  if,  as  a  musician,  as 
the  leader  of  a  mighty  orchestra,  you  had  this  theme 
offered  to  you  — '  Belshazzar  the  king  gave  a  great 
feast  to  a  thousand   of  his  lords'  —  or  this,  'And  on 
a  certain  day,  Marcus  Cicero  stood  up,  and  in  a   set 
speech  rendered  solemn  thanks  to  Caius  Caesar   for 
Quintus  Ligarius  pardoned,  and  for  Marcus  Marcellus 
restored  '  —  surely  no  man  would   deny  that,  in  such  a 
case,  simplicity,  though  in  a  passive  sense  not  lawfully 
absent,  must  stand  aside  as  totally  insufficient  for  the 
positive  part.     Simplicity  might  guide,  even  here,  but 
could  not  furnish  the  power ;  a  rudder  h  might  be,  but 
not  an  oar  or  a  sail.     This,  Lamb  was  ready  to  allow  ; 


CHARLES    LAMB.  1&5 

as  an  intellectual  quiddity^  he  recognised  pomp  in  the 
character  of  a  privileged  thing ;  he  was  obliged  to  do 
so;  for  take  away  from    great   ceremonial  festivals, 
such  as  the  solemn  rendering  of  thanks,  the  celebration 
of  national  anniversaries,  the  commemoration  of  public 
benefactors,  &c.,  the  element  of  pomp,  and  you  take 
away  their  very  meaning  and  life ;  but,  whilst  allowing 
a  place  for  it  in  the  rubric  of  the  logician,  it  is  certain 
that,  ^sensuously ^  Lamb  would  not  have  sympathized 
with  it,  nor  have  felt  its  justification  in  any  concrete 
instance.     We  find  a  difficulty  in  pursuing  this  subject^ 
without  greatly  exceeding  our  limits.     We  pause,  there- 
fore, and  add  only  this  one  suggestion  as  partly  ex- 
planatory of  the  case.    Lamb  had  the  dramatic  intellect  i 
and  taste,  perhaps,  in  perfection ;  of  the  Epic,  he  had 
none  at  all.     Here,  as  happens  sometimes  to  men  of 
genius  preternatural ly  endowed  in  one   direction,  he 
might  be  considered  as  almost  starved.     A  favorite  of 
nature,  so  eminent  in  some  directions,  by  what  right 
could  he  complain  that  her  bounties  were  not  indis- 
criminate ?     From  this  defect  in  his  nature  it  arose, 
^       I -that,  except  by  culture  and  by  reflection,  Lamb  had  no 
^    /     genial  appreciation  of  Milton.     The  solemn  planetary 
J'      :  wheelings  of  the  Paradise  Lost  were  not  to  his  taste. 
y  V  I  What  he  did  comprehend,  were  the  motions  like  those 
\  '^     I  of  lightning,  the  fierce  angular  coruscations  of  that  wild 
p  /    I  agency  which  comes  forward  so  vividly  in  the  sudden 
S\jf  1  TtBQinhrsia,  in  the  revolutionary  catastrophe,  and  in  the 
^     :  tumultuous  conflicts,  through  persons  or  through  situa- 
tions, of  the  tragic  drama. 

There  is  another  vice  in  Mr.  Hazlitt's  mode  of  com- 
position, viz.,  the  habit  of  trite  quotation,  too  common 


i^. 


I 

i 

i 


Ael96  CHARLES    LAMB. 

to  have  challenged  much  notice,  were  it  not  for  these 
reasons :  1st,  That  Sergeant  Talfourd  speaks  of  it  in 
equivocal  terms,  as  a  fault  perhaps,  but  as  a  '  felici- 
tous '  fault,  '  trailing  after  it  a  line  of  golden  associa- 
tions ; '  2dly,  because  the  practice  involves  a  dishon- 
esty. On  occasion  of  No.  1 ,  we  must  profess  our  belief 
that  a  more  ample  explanation  from  the  Sergeant  would 
have  left  him  in  substantial  harmony  with  ourselves. 
We  cannot  conceive  the  author  of  Ion,  and  the  friend 
of  Wordsworth,  seriously  to  countenance  that  paralytic 
*  mouth-diarrhoea,'  (to  borrow  a  phrase  of  Coleridge's) 
—  that  jluxe  de  hoiiche  (to  borrow  an  earlier  phrase  of 
Archbishop  Huet's)  which  places  the  reader  at  the 
mercy  of  a  man's  tritest  remembrances  from  his  most 
school-boy  reading.  To  have  the  verbal  memory  in- 
fested with  tags  of  verse  and  '  cues '  of  rhyme  is  in 
itself  an  infirmity  as  vulgar  and  as  morbid  as  the  stable- 
boy's  habit  of  whistling  slang  airs  upon  the  mere  me- 
chanical excitement  of  a  bar  or  two  whistled  by  some 
other  blockhead  in  some  other  stable.  The  very  stage 
has  grown  weary  of  ridiculing  a  folly,  that  having  been 
long  since  expelled  from  decent  society  has  taken 
refuge  amongst  the  most  imbecile  of  authors.  Was 
Mr.  Hazlitt  then  of  that  class  ?  No  ;  he  was  a  man  of 
great  talents,  and  of  capacity  for  greater  things  than  he 
ever  attempted,  though  without  any  pretensions  of  the 
philosophic  kind  ascribed  to  him  by  the  Sergeant. 
Meantime  the  reason  for  resisting  the  example  and 
practice  of  Hazlitt  lies  in  this  —  that  essentially  it  is  at 
war  with  sincerity,  the  foundation  of  all  good  writing, 
to  express  one's  own  thoughts  by  another  man's  words. 
This  dilemma  arises.     The  thought  is,  or  it  is  not. 


i 


CHAELES     LAMB.  197 

worthy  of  that  emphasis  which  belongs  to  a  metrical 
expression  of  it.  Ifit  is  not^  then  we  shall  be  guilty  of 
a  mere  folly  in  pushing  into  strong  relief  that  which 
confessedly  cannot  support  it.  If  it  is,  then  how  in- 
credible that  a  thought  strongly  conceived,  and  bearing 
about  it  the  impress  of  one's  own  individuality,  should 
naturally,  and  without  dissimulation  or  falsehood,  bend 
to  another  man's  expression  of  it!  Simply  to  back 
one's  own  view,  by  a  similar  view  derived  from  another, 
may  be  useful ;  a  quotation  that  repeats  one's  own  sen- 
timent, but  in  a  varied  form,  has  the  grace  which 
belongs  to  the  idem  in  alio,  the. same  radical  idea  ex- 
pressed with  a  difference  —  similarity  in  dissimilarity ; 
but  to  throw  one's  own  thoughts,  matter  and  form, 
through  alien  organs  so  absolutely  as  to  make  another 
man  one's  interpreter  for  evil  and  good,  is  either  to 
confess  a  singular  laxity  of  thinking  that  can  so  flexibly 
adapt  itself  to  any  casual  form  of  words,  or  else  to 
confess  that  sort  of  carelessness  about  the  expression 
which  draws  its  real  origin  from  a  sense  of  indifference 
about  the  things  to  be  expressed.  Utterly  at  war  this 
distressing  practice  is  with  all  simplicity  and  earnest- 
ness of  writing ;  it  argues  a  state  of  indolent  ease  in- 
consistent with  the  pressure  and  coersion  of  strong  fer- 
menting thoughts,  before  we  can  be  at  leisure  for  idle 
or  chance  quotations.  But  lastly,  in  reference  to  No. 
2,  we'must  add  that  the  practice  is  signally  dishonest. 
It  '  trails  after  it  a  line  of  golden  associations.'  Yes, 
and  the  burglar,  who  leaves  an  army-tailor's  after  a 
midnight  visit,  trails  after  him  perhaps  a  long  roll  of 
gold  bullion  epaulettes  which  may  look  pretty  by  lamp- 
light. 


198  CHARLES  LAMB. 

But  that,  in  the  present  condition  of  moral  philosophy 
amongst  the  police,  is  accounted  robbery ;  and  to 
benefit  too  much  by  quotations  is  little  less.  At  this 
moment  we  have  in  our  eye  a  work,  at  one  time  not 
without  celebrity,  which  is  one  continued  cento  of  splen- 
did passages  from  other  people.  The  natural  effect 
from  so  much  fine  writing  is,  that  the  reader  rises 
with  the  impression  of  having  been  engaged  upon  a 
most  eloquent  work.  Meantime  the  whole  is  a  series  of 
mosaics  ;  a  tessellation  .made  up  from  borrowed  frag- 
ments :  and  first,  when  the  reader's  attention  is  ex- 
pressly directed  upon  the  fact,  he  becomes  aware  that 
the  nominal  author  has  contributed  nothing  more  to  the 
book  than  a  few  passages  of  transition,  or  brief  clauses 
of  connection. 

In  the  year  1796,  the  main  incident  occurring  of  any 
importance  for  English  literature  was  the  publication 
by  Southey  of  an  epic  poem.  This  poem,  the  Joan  of 
Arc,  was  the  earliest  work  of  much  pretension  amongst 
all  that  Southey  wrote ;  and  by  many  degrees  it  was 
the  worst.  In  the  four  great  narrative  poems  of  his 
later  years,  there  is  a  combination  of  two  striking 
qualities,  viz.,  a  peculiar  command  over  the  visually 
splendid,  connected  with  a  deep-toned  grandeur  of 
moral  pathos.  Especially  we  find  this  union  in  the 
Thalaha  and  the  Roderick ;  but  in  the  Joan  of  Arc  we 
miss  it.  What  splendor  there  is  for  the  fancy  and  the  eye 
belongs  chiefly  to  the  Vision,  contributed  by  Coleridge, 
and  this  was  subsequently  withdrawn.  The  fault  lay 
in  Southey's  political  relations  at  that  era ;  his  sympa- 
thy with  the  French  Revolution  in  its  earlier  stages  had 
been  boundless ;  in  all  respects  it  was  a  noble  sympathy, 


CHARLES    LAMB.  199 

fading  only  as  the  gorgeous  coloring  faded  from  the 
emblazonries  of  that  awful  event,  drooping  only  when 
the  promises  of  that  golden  dawn  sickened  under  sta- 
tionary eclipse.  In  1796,  Southey  was  yet  under  the 
tyranny  of  his  own  earliest  fascination  ;  in  his  eyes  the 
Revolution  had  suffered  a  momentary  blight  from  re- 
fluxes of  panic ;  But  blight  of  some  kind  is  incident  to 
every  harvest  on  which  human  hopes  are  suspended. 
Bad  auguries  were  also  ascending  from  the  unchaining 
of  martial  instincts.  But  that  the  Revolution,  having 
ploughed  its  way  through  unparalleled  storms,  was  pre- 
paring to  face  other  storms,  did  but  quicken  the  appre- 
hensiveness  of  his  love  — did  but  quicken  the  duty  of 
giving  utterance  to  this  love.  Hence  came  the  rapid 
composition  of  the  poem,  which  cost  less  time  in 
writing  than  in  printing.  Hence,  also,  came  the  choice 
of  his  heroine.  What  he  needed  in  his  central  charac- 
ter was,  a  heart  with  a  capacity  for  the  wrath  of 
Hebrew  prophets  applied  to  ancient  abuses,  and  for 
evangelic  pity  applied  to  the  sufferings  of  nations. 
This  heart,  with  this  double  capacity  —  where  should 
he  seek  it  ?  A  French  heart  it  must  be,  or  how  should 
it  follow  with  its  sympathies  a  French  movement? 
There  lay  Southey's  reason  for  adopting  the  Maid  of 
Orleans  as  the  depositary  of  hopes  and  aspirations  on 
behalf  of  France  as  fervid  as  his  own.  In  choosing 
this  heroine,  so  inadequately  known  at  that  time, 
Southey  testified  at  least  his  own  nobility  of  feeling; 3 
but  in  executing  his  choice,  he  and  his  friends  over- 
looked two  faults  fatal  to  his  purpose.  One  was  this  : 
sympathy  with  the  French  Revolution  meant  sympathy 
with  the  opening  prospects  of  man  —  meant  sympathy 


200  CHARLES   LAMB. 

with  the  Pariah  of  every  clime  —  with  all  that  suffered 
social  wrong,  or  saddened  in  hopeless  bondage. 

That  was  the  movement  at  work  in  the  French  Rev- 
olution. But  the  movement  of  Joanne  d'Arc  took  a 
different  direction.  In  her  day  also,  it  is  true,  the 
human  heart  had  yearned  after  the  same  vast  enfran- 
chisement for  the  children  of  labor  as  afterwards 
worked  in  the  great  vision  of  the  French  Revolution. 
In  her  days  also,  and  shortly  before  them,  the  human 
hand  had  sought  by  bloody  acts  to  realize  this  dream  of 
the  heart.  And  in  her  childhood,  Joanna  had  not  been 
insensible  to  these  premature  motions  upon  a  path  too 
bloody  and  too  dark  to  be  safe.  But  this  view  of  hu- 
man misery  had  been  utterly  absorbed  to  her  by  the 
special  miseiy  then  desolating  France.  The  lilies  of 
France  had  been  trampled  under  foot  by  the  conquering 
stranger.  Within  fifty  years,  in  three  pitched  battles 
that  resounded  to  the  ends  of  the  earth,  the  chivalry  of 
France  had  been  exterminated.  Her  oriflamme  had 
been  dragged  through  the  dust.  The  eldest  son  of 
Baptism  had  been  prostrated.  The  daughter  of  France 
had  been  surrendered  on  coercion  as  a  bride  to  her 
English  conqueror.  The  child  of  that  marriage,  so 
ignominious  to  the  land,  was  king  of  France  by  the 
consent  of  Christendom ;  that  child's  uncle  domineered 
as  regent  of  France ;  and  that  child's  arniies  were  in 
military  possession  of  the  land.  But  were  they  undis- 
puted masters  ?  No  ?  and  there  precisely  lay  the  sor- 
row of  the  time.  Under  a  perfect  conquest  there  would 
have  been  repose ;  whereas  the  presence  of  the  Eng- 
lish armies  did  but  furnish  a  plea,  masking  itself  in 
patriotism,  for  gatherings  everywhere  of  lawless  ma- 


CHARLES    LAMB.  201 

rauders ;  of  soldiers  that  had  deserted  their  banners ; 
and  of  robbers  by  profession.     This  was  the  woe  of 
France  more  even  than  the  military  dishonor.     That 
dishonor  had  been  palliated  from  the  first  by  the  gene- 
alogical pretensions  of  the  English  royal  family  to  the 
French  throne,  and  these  pretensions  were  strengthened 
in  the  person  of  the  present  claimant.    But  the  military 
desolation  of  France,  this  it  was  that  woke  the  faith  of 
Joanna  in  her  own  heavenly  mission  of  deliverance. 
It  was  the    attitude  of  her   prostrate  country,  crying 
night  and  day  for  purification  from  blood,  and  not  from 
feudal  oppression,   that  swallowed  up  the  thoughts  of 
the  impassioned  girl.  ^  But  that  was  not  the  cry  that 
uttered    itself  afterwards   in   the    French    Revolution. 
In  Joanna's  days,  the  first  step  towards  rest  for  France 
was  by  expulsion  of  the  foreigner.     Independence  of  a 
foreign  yoke,  liberation  as  between  people  and  people, 
was  the  one  ransom  to  be  paid  for  French  honor  and 
peace.      That  debt  settled,  there  might  come  a  time  for 
thinking  of  civil  liberties.     But  this  time  was  not  within 
the  prospects  of  the  poor  shepherdess.     The  field  — 
the  area  of  her  sympathies  never  coincided  with  that 
of  the  Revolutionary    period.     It   followed  therefore, 
that  Southey  could  not  have  raised  Joanna  (with  her 
condition   of  feeling)    by  any  management,   into   the 
interpreter  of  his  own.     That  was  the  first  error  in  his 
poem,  and  it  was  irremediable.  The  second  was  —  and 
strangely  enough  this  also  escaped  notice  —  that  the 
heroine  of  Southey  is  made  to  close  her  career  pre- 
cisely at  the  point  when  its  grandeur  commences.     She 
believed  herself  to  have  a  mission  for  the  deliverance 
of  France  ;  and  the  great  instrument  which   she  was 


202  CHARLES    LAMB. 

authorized  lo  use  towards  this  end,  was  the  king, 
Charles  VII.  Him  she  was  to  crown.  With  this  coro- 
nation, her  triumph,  in  the  plain  historical  sense,  ended. 
And  there  ends  Southey's  poem.  But  exactly  at  this 
point,  the  grander  stage  of  her  mission  commences, 
viz.,  the  ransom  which  she,  a  solitary  girl,  paid  in  her 
own  person  for  the  national  deliverance.  The  grander 
half  of  the  story  was  thus  sacrificed,  as  being  irrelevant 
to  Southey's  political  object ;  and  yet,  after  all,  the  half 
which  he  retained  did  not  at  all  symbolyze  that  object. 
It  is  singular,  indeed,  to  find  a  long  poem,  on  an 
ancient  subject,  adapting  itself  hieroglyphically  to  a 
modern  purpose ;  2dly,  to  find  it  faiUng  of  this  pur- 
pose ;  and  3dly,  if  it  had  not  failed,  so  planned  that 
it  could  have  succeeded  only  by  a  sacrifice  of  all  that 
,was  grandest  in  the  theme. 

To  these  capital  oversights,  Southey,  Coleridge,  and 

Lamb,  were  all  joint  parties  ;  the  two  first  as  concerned 

j  in  the  composition,  the  last  as  a  frank  though  friendly 

;  reviewer   of   it    in   his   private    correspondence    with 

(  Coleridge.     It   is,  however,  some    palliation  of  these 

i  oversights,    and    a   very  singular   fact  in    itself,    that 

neither   from    English   authorities    nor   from   French, 

though  the  two  nations  were  equally  brought  into  close 

connection  with  the  career  of  that  extraordinary  girl, 

could  any  adequate  view  be  obtained  of  her  character 

and  acts.     The  official  records  of  her  trial,  apart  from 

which  nothing  can  be  depended  upon,  were  first  in  the 

course  of  publication  from  the  Paris  press  during  the 

currency    of  last   year.      First   in    1847,   about  four 

hundred  and  sixteen  years  after  her  ashes  had  been 

dispersed  to    the  winds,  could  it  be    seen   distinctly, 


CHARLES    LAMB.  203 

I  through  the  clouds  of  fierce  partisanships  and  national 
1  prejudices,  what  had  been  the  frenzy  of  the  perse- 
l  cution  against  her,  and  the  utter  desolation  of  her 
\  position ;  what  had  been  the  grandeur  of  her  con- 
\scientious  resistance. 

Anxious  that  our  readers  should  see  Lamb  from  as 
many  angles  as  possible,  we  have  obtained  from  an 
old  friend  of  his  a  memorial  —  slight,  but  such  as  the 
circumstances  allowed  —  of  an  evening  spent  with 
Charles  and  Mary  Lamb,  in  the  winter  of  1821-22. 
The  record  is  of  the  most  unambitious  character ;  it 
pretends  to  nothing,  as  the  reader  will  see,  not  so 
much  as  to  a  pun,  which  it  really  required  some 
singularity  of  luck  to  have  missed  from  Charles  Lamb, 
who  oXten  continued  to  fire  puns,  as  minute  guns,  all 
through  the  evening.  But  the  more  unpretending  this 
record  is,  the  more  appropriate  it  becomes  by  that  very 
fact  to  the  memory  of  Mm  who,  amongst  all  authors, 
was  the  humblest  and  least  pretending.  We  have 
often  thought  that  the  famous  epitaph  written  for  his  I 
grave  by  Piron,  the  cynical  author  of  La  Meiromanie, 
might  have  come  from  Lamb,  were  it  not  for  one 
objection  ;  Lamb's  benign  heart  would  have  recoiled 
from  a  sarcasm,  however  effective,  inscribed  upon  a 
grave-stone ;  or  from  a  jest,  however  playful,  that 
tended  to  a  vindictive  sneer  amongst  his  own  farewell 
words.  We  once  translated  this  Piron  epitaph  into  a 
kind  of  rambling  Drayton  couplet ;  and  the  only  point 
needing  explanation  is,  that,  from  the  accident  of 
scientific  men.  Fellows  of  the  Royal  Society  being 
usually  very  solemn  men,  with  an  extra  chance,  there- 
fore, for  being  dull   men  in  conversation,  naturally  it 


204  CHARLES    LAMB. 

arose  that  some  wit  amongst  our  great-grandfathers 
translated  F.  R.  S.  into  a  short-hand  expression  for  a 
Fellow  Remarkably  Stupid  ;  to  which  version  of  the 
three  letters  our  English  epitaph  alludes.  The  French 
original  of  Piron  is  this  : 

'  Ci  git  Piron  ;  qui  ne  fut  rien  ;  i 

Pas  meme  academicien.' 

The  bitter  arrow  of  the  second  line  was  feathered  to 
hit  the  French  Academic,  who  had  declined  to  elect 
him  a  member.     Our  translation  is  this  : 

'  Here  lies  Piron  ;  who  was  —  nothing  ;  or,  if  that  could  be,  was 

less: 
How! — nothinq^  ?    Yes,  nothing;  not  so  much  as  F.  R.  S.' 

But  now  to  our  friend's  memorandum  : 

"October  6,  1848. 
"  My  dear  X.  —  You  ask  me  for  some  memorial, 
however  trivial,  of  any  dinner  party,  supper  party, 
water  party,  no  matter  what,  that  1  can  circumstantially 
recall  to  recollection,  by  any  features  whatever,  puns 
or  repartees,  wisdom  or  wit,  connecting  it  with  Charles 
Lamb.  I  grieve  to  say  that  my* meetings  of  any  sort 
with  Lamb  were  few,  though  spread  through  a  score 
of  years.  That  sounds  odd  for  one  that  loved  Lamb 
so  entirely,  and  so  much  venerated  his  character.  But 
the  reason  was,  that  I  so  seldom  visited  London,  and 
Lamb  so  seldom  quitted  it.  Somewhere  about  1810 
and  1812  I  must  have  met  Lamb  repeatedly  at  the 
Courier  Office  in  the  Strand  ;  that  is,  at  Coleridge's,  to 
whom,  as  an  intimate  friend,  Mr.  Stuart  (a  proprietor 
of  the  paper)  gave  up  for  a  time  the  use  of  some 
rooms  in  the  office.     Thither,  in  the  London  season, 


CHARLES 


(May  especially  and  June,)  resorted  Lamb,  Godwin, 
Sir  H.  Davy,  and,  once  or  twice,  Wordsworth,  who 
visited  Sir  George  Beaumont's  Leicestershire  residence 
of  Coleorton  early  in  the  spring,  and  then  travelled 
up  to  Grosvenor  Square  with  Sir  George  and  Lady 
Beaumont :    '  spectatum  veniens,  veniens  spectetur  ut 


ipse.^ 


But  in  these  miscellaneous  gatherings,  Lamb  said 
little  except  when  an  opening  arose  for  a  pun.  And 
how  effectual  that  sort  of  small  shot  was  from  him,  1 
need  not  say  to  anybody  who  remembers  his  infirmity 
of  stammering,  and  his  dexterous  management  of  it 
for  purposes  of  light  and  shade.  He  was  often  able  to 
train  the  roll  of  stammers  into  settling  upon  the  words 
immediately  preceding  the  effective  one ;  by  which 
means  the  key-note  of  the  jest  or  sarcasm,  benefiting 
by  the  sudden  liberation  of  his  embargoed  voice,  was 
delivered  with  the  force  of  a  pistol  shot.  That 
stammer  was  worth  an  annuity  to  him  as  an  ally  of 
his  wit.  Firing  under  cover  of  that  advantage,  he  did 
triple  execution ;  for,  in  the  first  place,  the  distressing 
sympathy  of  the  hearers  with  his  distress  of  utterance 
won  for  him  unavoidably  the  silence  of  deep  attention ; 
and  then,  whilst  he  had  us  all  hoaxed  into  this  attitude 
of  mute  suspense  by  an  appearance  of  distress  that  he 
perhaps  did  not  really  feel,  down  came  a  plunging  shot 
into  the  very  thick  of  us,  with  ten  times  the  effect  it 
would  else  have  had.  If  his  stammering,  however, 
often  did  him  true  *  yeoman's  service,'  sometimes  it 
led  him  into  scrapes.  Coleridge  told  me  of  a  ludicrous 
embarrassment  which  it  caused  him  at  Hastings.  Lamb 
had  been  medically  advised  to  a  course  of  sea-bathing; 


206 


CHAKLES    LAMB. 


and  accordingly  at  the  door  of  his  bathing  machine, 
whilst  he  stood  shivering  with  cold,  two  stout  fellows 
laid  hold  of  him,  one  at  each  shoulder,  like  heraldic 
supporters  ;  they  waited  for  the  word  of  command 
from  their  principal,  who  began  the  following  oration 
to  them  :  '  Hear  me,  men  !  Take  notice  of  this  —  I 
am  to  be  dipped.'  What  more  he  would  have  said  is 
unknov/n  to  land  or  sea  or  bathing  machines ;  for 
having  reached  the  word  dipped,  he  commenced  such 
a  rolling  fire  of  Di  —  di  —  di  —  di,  that  when  at  length 
he  descended  a  plomh  upon  the  full  word  dipped,  the 
two  men,  rather  tired  of  the  long  suspense,  became 
satisfied  that  they  had  reached  what  lawyers  call  the 
'operative'  clause  of  the  sentence ;  and  both  ex- 
claiming at  once,  '  Oh  yes,  Sir,  we're  quite  aware  of 
that,''  down  they  plunged  him  into  the  sea.  On 
emerging,  Lamb  sobbed  so  much  from  the  cold,  that 
he  found  no  voice  suitable  to  his  indignation  ;  from 
necessity  he  seemed  tranquil ;  and  again  addressing 
the  hien,  who  stood  respectfully  listening,  he  began 
thus :  '  Men  !  is  it  possible  to  obtain  your  attention  ?  ' 
'  Oh  surely.  Sir,  by  all  means.'  '  Then  listen  :  once 
morp  I  tell  you,  I  am  to  be  di  —  di  —  di  — ' —  and  then, 

with  a  burst  of  indignation,  '  dipped,  I  tell  you,' 

'  Oh  decidedly,  Sir,'  rejoined  the  men,  '  decidedly,' 
and  down  the  stammerer  went  for  the  second  time. 
Petrified  with  cold  and  wrath,  once  more  Lamb  made 
a  feeble  attempt  at  explanation  — '  Grant  me  pa — pa — 
patience  ;  is  it  mum  —  um  —  murder  you  me  —  me  — 
mean  }  Again  and  a  —  ga  —  ga —  gain,  I  tell  you,  I'm 
to  be  di —  di  —  di  —  dipped,'  now  speaking  furiously, 
with  the  voice  of  an  injured  man.     *  Oh  yes.  Sir,'  the 


CHARLES  LAMB.  207 

men  replied,  *  we  know- that,  we  fully  understood  it,' 
and  for  the  third  time  down  went  Lamb  into  the  sea. 
'  Oh  limbs  of  Satan  ! '  he  said,  on  coming  up  for  the 
third  time,  'it's  now  too  late  ;  I  tell  you  that  I  am — ■ 
no,  that  I  was  —  to  be  di  —  di  —  di  —  dipped  only  once.'' 
Since  the  rencontres  with  Lamb  at  Coleridge's,  I 
had  met  him  once  or  twice  at  literary  dinner  parties. 
One  of  these  occurred  at  the  house  of  Messrs.  Taylor 
&  Hessey,  the  publishers.  1  myself  was  suffering 
too  much  from  illness  at  the  time  to  take  any  pleasure 
in  what  passed,  or  to  notice  it  with  any  vigilance  of 
attention.  Lamb,  I  remember,  as  usual,  was  full  of 
gayety  ;  and  as  usual  he  rose  too  rapidly  to  the  zenith 
of  his  gayety ;  for  he  shot  upwards  like  a  rocket,  and, 
as  usual,  people  said  he  was  '  tipsy.'  To  me  Lamb 
never  seemed  intoxicated,  but  at  most  aerially  elevated. 
He  never  talked  nonsense,  which  is  a  great  point 
gained  ;  nor  polemically,  which  is  a  greater ;  for  it  is 
a  dreadful  thing  to  find  a  drunken  man  bent  upon  con- 
verting oneself  ;  nor  sentimentally,  which  is  greatest  of 
all.  You  can  stand  a  man's  fraternizing  with  you  ;  or 
if  he  swears  an  eternal  friendship,  only  once  in  an 
hour,  you  do  not  think  of  calling  the  police  ;  but  once 
in  every  three  minutes  is  too  much.  Lamb  did  none 
of  these  things  ;  he  was  always  rational,  quiet,  and 
gentlemanly  in  his  habits.  Nothing  memorable,  I  am 
sure,  passed  upon  this  occasion,  which  was  in  Novem- 
ber of  1821  ;  and  yet  the  dinner  was  memorable  by 
means  of  one  fact  not  discovered  until  many  years 
later.  Amongst  the  company,  all  Uterary  men,  sate  a 
murderer,  and  a  murderer  of  a  freezing  class ;  cool, 
calculating,  wholesale  in  his  operations,  and  moving  all 


208  CHAHLES  LAMB. 

along  under  the  advantages  of  unsuspecting  domestic 
confidence  and  domestic  opportunities.     This  was  Mr. 
Wainwright,  who  was  subsequently  brought  to  trial,  but 
not  for  any  of  his  murders,  and  transported  for  life. 
The  stoiy   has  been   told   by  Sergeant   Talfourd,  in 
the   second   volume   of    these  '  Final   Memoirs,'    and 
previously  by  Sir  Edward  B.  Lytton.     Both  have  been 
much  blamed  for  the  use  made  of  this  extraordinary 
case  ;  but  we  know   not  why.     In  itself  it  is  a  most 
remarkable  case  for   more   reasons   than  one.     It  is 
remarkable  for  the  apalling  revelation  which  it  makes 
of  power  spread  through  the  hands  of  people  not  liable 
to  suspicion,  for  purposes   the    most   dreadful.     It  is 
remarkable  also  by  the  contrast  which  existed  in  this 
case    between    the    murderer's   appearance,  and   the 
terrific  purposes  with  which  he  was  always  dallying. 
He  was  a  contributor  to  a  journal  in  which  I  also  had 
written  several  papers.     This  formed  a  shadowy  link 
between  us ;  and,  ill  as  I  was,  I  looked  more  attentive- 
ly  at   him   than   at   anybody   else.     Yet   there   were 
several  men  of  wit  and  genius  present,  amongst  whom 
Lamb  (as  I  have  said),  and  Thomas  Hood,  Hamilton 
Reynolds,  and  Allan  Cunningham.    But  them  I  already 
knew,  whereas  Mr.  W.  I  now  saw  for  the  first  time  and 
the  last.     What  interested  me  about  him  was  this,  the 
papers   which   had   been    pointed  out   to    me    as  his, 
(signed   Janus   Weathercock,    Vinkbooms,   &c.)    were 
written  in  a  spirit  of  coxcombry  that  did  not  so  much 
disgust  as  amuse.     The  writer  could  not  conceal  the 
ostentatious    pleasure  which  he  took  in  the  luxurious 
fittings  up  of  his  rooms,  in  the  fancied  splendor  of  his 
bijouterie,  &;c.     Yet  it  was  easy  for  a  man  of  any 


CHARLES    LAMB.  .209 

experience  to  read  two  facts  in  all  this  idle  etalage  ; 
one  being,  that  his  finery  was  but  of  a  second-rate 
order ;  the  other,  that  he  was  a  parvenu,  not  at  home 
even  amongst  his  second-rate  splendor.     So  far  there 

was   nothing  to  distinguish  Mr.  W 's  papers  from 

the  papers  of  other  triflers.  But  in  this  point  there 
was,  viz.,  that  in  his  judgments  upon  the  great  Italian 
masters  of  painting,  Da  Vinci,  Titian,  &c.,  there 
seemed  a  tone  of  sincerity  and  of  native  sensibility,  as 
in  one  who  spoke  from  himself,  and  was  not  merely  a 
copier  from  books.  This  it  was  that  interested  me ; 
as  also  his  reviews  of  the  chief  Italian  engravers, 
Morghen,  Volpato,  &c.;  not  for  the  manner,  which 
overflowed  with  levities  and  impertinence,  but  for  the 
substance  of  his  judgments  in  those  cases  where  I 
happened  to  have  had  an  opportunity  of  judging  for 
myself.  Here  arose  also  a  claim  upon  Lamb's  atten- 
tion ;  for  Lamb  and  his  sister  had  a  deep  feeling  for 
what  was  excellent  in  painting.  Accordingly  Lamb 
paid  him  a  great  deal  of  attention,  and  continued 
to  speak  of  him  for  years  with  an  interest  that  seemed 
disproportioned  to  his  pretensions.  This  might  be 
owing  in  part  to  an  indirect  compliment  paid  to  Miss 

Lamb  in  one  of  W- 's  papers ;    else  his  appearance 

would  rather  have  repelled  Lamb ;  it  was  common- 
place, and  better  suited  to  express  the  dandyism  which 
overspread  the  surface  of  his  manner,  than  the  unaf- 
fected sensibility  which  apparently  lay  in  his  nature. 
Dandy  or  not,  however,  this  man,  on  account  of  the 
schism  in  his  papers,  so  much  amiable  puppyism  on 
one  side,  so  much  deep  feehng  on  the  other,  (feeling, 
applied  to  some  of  the  grandest  objects  that  earth  has 
14 


210  CHAKLES    LAMB. 

to  show,)  did  really  move  a  trifle  of  interest  in  me,  on 
a  day  when  I  hated  the  face  of  man  arid  woman.  Yet 
again,  if  I  had  known  this  man  for  the  murderer  that 
even  then  he  was,  what  sudden  loss  of  interest,  what 
sudden  growth  of  another  interest,  would  have  changed 
the  face  of  that  party !  Trivial  creature,  that  didst 
carry  thy  dreadful  eye  kindling  with  perpetual  trea- 
sons !  Dreadful  creature,  that -didst  carry  thy  trivial 
eye,  mantling  with  eternal  levity,  over  the  sleeping 
surfaces  of  confiding  household  life  —  oh,  what  a 
revolution  for  man  wouldst  thou  have  accomplished 
had  thy  deep  wickedness  prospered  !  What  was  that 
wickedness .?     In  a  ^ew  words  1  will  say. 

At  this  time  (October,  1848)  the  whole  British  island 
is  appalled  by  a  new  chapter  in  the  history  of  poisoning. 
Locusta  in  ancient  Rome,  Madame  Brinvilliers  in  Paris, 
were  people  of  original  genius:  not  in  any  new  artifice 
of  toxicology,  not  in  the  mere  management  of  poisons, 
was  the  audacity  of  their  genius  displayed.  No;  but 
in  profiting  by  domestic  openings  for  murder,  un- 
suspected through  their  very  atrocity.  Such  an  open- 
ing was  made  some  years  ago  by  those  who  saw  the 
possibility  of  founding  purses  for  parents  upon  the 
murder  of  their  children.  This*  was  done  upon  a 
larger  scale  than  had  been  suspected,  and  upon  a 
plausible  pretence.  To  bury  a  corpse  is  costly  ;  but  of 
a  hundred  children  only  a  ^aw^  in  the  ordinary  course 
of  mortality,  will  die  within  a  given  time.  Five  shil- 
lings a-piece  will  produce  £2b  annually,  and  thai  will 
bury  a  considerable  number.  On  this  principle  arose 
■Infant  Burial  Societies.  For  a  few  shillings  annually, 
%  parent  could  secure  a  funeral  for  every  child.     Jf  the 


CHARLES    LAMB.  211 

child  died,  a  few  guineas  fell  due  to  the  parent,  and  the 
funeral  was  accomplished  without  cost  of  Ids.  But  on 
this  arose  the  suggestion  —  Why  not  execute  an  insur- 
ance of  this  nature  twenty  times  over  ?  One  single 
insurance  pays  for  the  funeral  —  the  other  nineteen  are 
so  much  clear  gain,  a  lucro  ponatur,  for  the  parents. 
Yes ;  but  on  the  supposition  that  the  child  died  !  twenty 
are  no  better  than  one,  unless  they  are  gathered  into 
the  garner.  Now,  if  the  child  died  naturally,  all  was 
right;  but  how,  if  the  child  did  not  die  ?  Why,  clearly 
this,  —  the  child  that  can  die,  and  won't  die,  may  be 
made  to  die.  There  are  many  ways  of  doing  that ;  and 
it  is  shocking  to  know,  that,  according  to  recent  dis- 
coveries, poison  is  comparatively  a  very  merciful  mode 
of  murder.  Six  years  ago  a  dreadful  communication 
was  made  to  the  public  by  a  medical  man,  viz  ,  that 
three  thousand  children  were  annually  burned  to  death 
under  circumstances  showing  too  clearly  that  they 
had  been  left  by  their  mothers  with  the  means  and  the 
temptations  to  set  themselves  on  fire  in  her  absence. 
But  more  shocking,  because  more  lingering,  are  the 
deaths  by  artificial  appliances  of  wet,  cold,  hunger,  bad 
diet,  and  disturbed  sleep,  to  the  frail  constitutions  of 
children.  By  that  machinery  it  is,  and  not  by  poison, 
that  the  majority  qualify  themselves  for  claiming  the 
funeral  allowances.  Here,  however,  there  occur  to 
any  man,  on  reflection,  two  eventual  restraints  on  the 
extension  of  this  domestic  curse  :  —  1st,  as  there  is  no 
pretext  for  wanting  more  than  one  funeral  on  account 
of  one  child,  any  insurances  beyond  one  are  in  them- 
selves a  ground  of  suspicion.  Now,  if  any  plan  were 
devised  for  securing  the  publication  of  such  insurances, 


212  CHARLES    LAMB. 

the  suspicions  would  travel  as  fast  as  the  grounds  for 
them.  2dly,  it  occurs,  that  eventually  the  evil  checks 
itself,  since  a  society  established  on  the  ordinary  rates 
of  mortality  would  be  ruined  when  a  murderous  stimu- 
lation was  applied  to  that  rate  too  extensively.  Still  it 
is  certain  that,  for  a  season,  this  atrocity  has  prospered 
in  manufacturing  districts  for  some  years,  and  more 
recently,  as  judicial  investigations  have  shown,  in  one 

agricultural   district   of   Essex.     Now,   Mr.   W 's 

scheme  of  murder  was,  in  its  outline,  the  very  same, 
but  not  applied  to  the  narrow  purpose  of  obtaining 
burials  from  a  public  fund.  He  persuaded,  for  instance, 
two  beautiful  young  ladies,  visitors  in  his  family,  to 
insure  their  lives  for  a  short  period  of  two  years.  This 
insurance  was  repeated  in  several  different  offices,  until 
a  sum  of  .£18,000  had  been  secured  in  the  event  of 

their  deaths  within  the  two  years.     Mr.  W took 

care  that  they  should  die,  and  very  suddenly,  within 
that  period  ;  and  then,  having  previously  secured  from 
his  victims  an  assignment  to  himself  of  this  claim,  he 
endeavored  to  make  this  assignment  available.  But  the 
offices,  which  had  vainly  endeavored  to  extract  from 
the  young  ladies  any  satisfactory  account  of  the  rea- 
sons for  this  limited  insurance,  had  their  suspicions  at 
last  strongly  roused.  One  office  had  recently  experi- 
enced a  case  of  the  same  nature,  in  which  also  the 
young  lady  had  been-  poisoned  by  the  man  in  whose 
behalf  she  had  effected  the  insurance ;  all  the  offices 
declined  to  pay ;  actions  at  law  arose  ;  in  the  course  of 
the  investigation  which  followed,  Mr.  W 's  charac- 
ter was  fully  exposed.  Finally,  in  the  midst  of  the 
embarrassments  which  ensued,  he  committed  forgery, 
and  was  transported. 


CHARLES    LAMB.  213 

From  this  Mr.  W ,  some  few  days  afterwards,  I 

received  an  invitation  to  a  dinner  party,  expressed  in 
terms  that  were  obligingly  earnest.  He  mentioned  the 
names  of  his  principal  guests,  and  amongst  them  rested 
most  upon  those  of  Lamb  and  Sir  David  Wilkie.  From 
an  accident  I  was  unable  to  attend,  and  greatly  regretted 
it.  Sir  David  one  might  rarely  happen  to  see,  except  at 
a  crowded  party.  But  as  regarded  Lamb,  I  was  sure 
to  see  him  or  to  hear  of  him  again  in  some  way  or 
other  within  a  short  time.  This  opportunity,  in  fact, 
offered  itself  within  a  month  through  the  kindness  of 
the  Lambs  themselves.  They  had  heard  of  my  being 
in  solitary  lodgings,  and  insisted  on  my  coming  to  dine 
with  them,  which  more  than  once  I  did  in  the  winter 
of  1821-22. 

The  mere  reception  by  the  Lambs  was  so  full  of 
goodness  and  hospitable  feeling,  that  it  kindled  anima- 
tion in  the  most  cheerless  or  torpid  of  invalids.  I  can- 
not imagine  that  any  memorabilia  occurred  during  the 
visit ;  but  I  will  use  the  time  that  would  else  be  lost 
upon  the  settling  of  that  point,  in  putting  down  any 
triviality  that  occurs  to  my  recollection.  Both  Lamb 
and  myself  had  a  furious  love  for  nonsense,  headlong 
nonsense.  Excepting  Professor  Wilson,  I  have  known 
nobody  who  had  the  same  passion  to  the  same  extent. 
And  things  of  that  nature  better  illustrate  the  realities 
of  Lamb's  social  life  than  the  gravities,  which  weighing 
so  sadly  on  his  solitary  hours  he  sought  to  banish  from 
his  moments  of  relaxation. 

There  were  no  strangers ;  Charles  Lamb,  his  sister, 
and  myself  made  up  the  party.  Even  this  was  done 
in   kindness.     They  knew  that  I   should   have    been 


214  CHARLES    LAMB. 

oppressed  by  an  effort  such  as  must  be  made  in  the 
society  of  strangers ;  and  they  placed  me  by  their  own 
fireside,  where  I  could  say  as  little  or  as  much  as  I 
pleased. 

We  dined  about  five  o'clock,  and  it  was  one  of  the 
hospitalities  inevitable  to  the  Lambs,  that  any  game 
which  they  might  receive  from  rural  friends  in  the 
course  of  the  week,  was  reserved  for  the  day  of  a 
friend's  dining  with  them. 

In  regard  to  wine,  Lamb  and  myself  had  the  same 
habit  —  perhaps  it  rose  to  the  dignity  of  a  principle  — 
viz.,  to  take  a  great  deal  during  dinner  —  none  after  it. 
Consequently,  as  Miss  Laftib  (who  drank  onlyjpvater) 
retired  almost  with  the  dinner  itself,  nothing  remained 
for  men  of  our  principles,  the  rigor  of  which  we  had 
illustrated  by  taking  rather  too  much  of  old  port  before 
the  cloth  was  drawn,  except  talking ;  amoebEean  collo- 
quy, or,  in  Dr.  Johnson's  phrase,  a  dialogue  of  '  brisk 
reciprocation.'  But  this  was  impossible ;  over  Lamb, 
at  this  period  of  his  life,  there  passed  regularly,  after 
taking  wine,  a  brief  eclipse  of  sleep.  It  descended 
upon  him  as  sofdy  as  a  shadow.  In  a  gross  person, 
laden  with  superfluous  flesh,  and  sleeping  heavily,  this 
would  have  been  disagreeable  ;  but  in  Lamb,  thin  even 
to  meagreness,  spare  and  wiry  as  an  Arab  of  the  desert, 
or  as  Thomas  Aquinas,  wasted  by  scholastic  vigils,  the 
affection  of  sleep  seemed  rather  a  network  of  aerial 
gossamer  than  of  earthly  cobweb  —  more  like  a  golden 
haze  falling  upon  him  gently  from  the  heavens  than  a 
cloud  exhaling  upwards  from  the  flesh.  Motionless  in 
his  chair  as  a  bust,  breathing  so  gently  as  scarcely  to 
I  seem  certainly  alive,  he  presented  the  image  of  repose 


CHARLES    LAMB.  215 

midway  between  life  and  death,  like  the  repose  of 
sculpture ;  and  to  one  who  knew  his  history,  a  repose 
affectingly  contrasting  with  the  calamities  and  internal 
storms  of  his  life.  I  have  heard  more  persons  than  I 
can  now  distinctly  recall,  observe  of  Lamb  when  sleep- 
ing, that  his  countenance  in  that  state  assumed  an 
expression  almost  seraphic,  from  its  intellectual  beauty 
of  outline,  its  childlike  simplicity,  and  its  benignity. 
It  could  not  be  called  a  transfiguration  that  sleep  had 
worked  in  his  face  ;  for  the  features  wore  essentially 
the  same  expression  when  waking ;  but  sleep  spiritual- 
ized that  expression,  exalted  it,  and  also  harmonized  it. 
Much  of  the  change  lay  in  that  last  process.  The  eyes 
it  was  that  disturbed  the  unity  of  effect  in  Lamb's 
waking  face.  They  gave  a  restlessness  to  the  charac- 
ter of  his  intellect,  shifting,  like  northern  lights,  through 
every  mode  of  combination  with  fantastic  playfulness, 
and  sometimes  by  fiery  gleams  obliterating  for  the  mo- 
ment that  pure  light  of  benignity  which  was  the  pre- 
dominant reading  on  his  features.  Some  people  have 
supposed  that  Lamb  had  Jewish  blood  in  his  veins, 
which  seemed  to  account  for  his  gleaming  eyes.  It 
might  be  so ;  but  this  notion  found  little  countenance  in 
Lamb's  own  way  of  treating  the  gloomy  mediaeval  tra- 
ditions propagated  throughout  Europe  about  the  Jews, 
and  their  secret  enmity  to  Christian  races.  Lamb,  in- 
deed, might  not  be  more  serious  than  Shakspeare  is 
supposed  to  have  been  in  his  Shylock  ;  yet  he  spoke  at 
times  as  from  a  station  of  wilful  bigotry,  and  seemed 
(whether  laughingly  or  not)  to  sympathize  with  the 
barbarous  Christian  superstitions  upon  the  pretended 
bloody  practices  of  the  Jews,  and  of  the  early  Jewish 


216  CHARLES   LAMB. 

physicians.  Being  himself  a  Lincoln  man,  he  treated 
Sir  Hugh  4  of  Lincoln,  the  young  child  that  suffered 
death  by  secret  assassination  in  the  Jewish  quarter 
rather  than  suppress  his  daily  anthems  to  the  Virgin,  as 
a  true  historical  personage  on  the  rolls  of  martyrdom  : 
careless  that  this  fable,  like  that  of  the  apprentice  mur- 
dered out  of  jealousy  by  his  master,  the  architect,  had 
destroyed  its  own  authority  by  ubiquitous  diffusion. 
All  over  Europe  the  same  legend  of  the  murdered  ap- 
prentice and  the  martyred  child  reappears  under  differ- 
ent names  —  so  that  in  effect  the  verification  of  the  tale 
is  none  at  all,  because  it  is  unanimous  ;  is  too  narrow, 
because  it  is  too  impossibly  broad.  Lamb,  however, 
though  it  was  often  hard  to  say  whether  he  were  not 
secretly  laughing,  swore  to  the  truth  of  all  these  old 
fables,  and  treated  the  liberalities  of  the  present  gene- 
ration on  such  points  as  mere  fantastic  and  effeminate 
affectations,  which,  no  doubt,  they  often  are  as  regards 
the  sincerity  of  those  who  profess  them.  The  bigotry 
which  it  pleased  his  fancy  to  assume,  he  used  like  a 
sword  against  the  Jew,  as  the  official  weapon  of  the 
Christian,  upon  the  same  principle  that  a  Capulet  would 
have  drawn  upon  a  Montague,  without  conceiving  it 
any  duty  of  his  to  rip  up  the  grounds  of  so  ancient  a 
quarrel;  it  was  a  feud  handed  down  to  him  by  his 
ancestors,  and  it  was  their  business  to  see  that  originally 
it  had  been  an  honest  feud.  I  cannot  yet  believe  that 
Lamb  is  seriously  aware  of  any  family  interconnection 
with  Jewish  blood,  would,  even  in  jest,  have  held  that 
one-sided  language.  More  probable  it  is,  that  the  fiery  1 
eye  recorded  not  any  alliance  with  Jewish  blood,  but! 
that  disastrous  alliance  with  insanity  which  tainted  his  ^ 
own  life,  and  laid  desolate  his  sister's. 


CHARLES    LAMB.  217 

On  awakening  from  his  brief  slumber,  Lamb  sat  for 
some  time  in  profound  silence,  and  then,  with  the  most 
startling  rapidity,  sang  out — 'Diddle,  diddle,  dump- 
kins  ; '  not  looking  at  me,  but  as  if  soliloquizing.  For 
five  minutes  he  relapsed  into  the  same  deep  silence ; 
from  which  again  he  started  up  into  the  same  abrupt 
utterance  of — '  Diddle,  diddle,  dumpkins.'  I  could  not 
help  laughing  aloud  at  the  extreme  energy  of  this  sud- 
den communication,  contrasted  with  the  deep  silence 
that  went  before  and  followed.  Lamb  smilingly  begged 
to  know  what  I  was  laughing  at,  and  with  a  look  of  as 
much  surprise  as  if  it  were  I  that  had  done  something 
unaccountable,  and  not  himself.  I  told  him  (as  was  the 
truth)  that  there  had  suddenly  occurred  to  me  the  pos- 
sibility of  my  being  in  some  future  period  or  other 
called  on  to  give  an  account  of  this  very  evening  before 
some  literary  committee.  The  committee  might  say 
to  me — (supposing  the  case  that  I  outlived  him)  — 
'You  dined  with  Mr.  Lamb  in  January,  1822;  now, 
can  you  remember  any  remark  or  memorable  observa- 
tion which  that  celebrated  man  made  before  or  after 
dinner  ? ' 

I  as  respondent.     '  Oh  yes,  I  can.' 

Com.  '  What  was  it .? ' 

Resp.  '  Diddle,  diddle,  dumpkins.' 

Com.  '  And  was  this  his  only  observation  ?  Did  Mr. 
Lamb  not  strengthen  this  remark  by  some  other  of  the 
same  nature  ?  ' 

Resp.  '  Yes,  he  did.' 

Com.  '  And  what  was  it  ? ' 

Resp.  '  Diddle,  diddle,  dumpkins.' 

Com.  '  What  is  your  secret  opinion  of  Dumpkins  ? 


218 


CHARLES    LAMB. 


Do  you  conceive  Dumpkins  to  have  been  a  thing  or  a 
person  ?  ' 

Resp.  '  I  conceive  Dumpkins  to  have  been  a  person, 
having  the  rights  of  a  person.' 

Com.  '  Capable,  for  instance,  of  suing  and  being 
sued  ? ' 

Resp.  '  Yes,  capable  of  both ;  though  I  have  reason 
to  think  there  would  have  been  very  little  use  in  suing 
Dumpkins.' 

Com.  '  How  so  ?  Are  the  committee  to  understand 
that  you,  the  respondent,  in  your  own  case,  have  found 
it  a  vain  speculation,  countenanced  only  by  visionary 
lawyers,  to  sue  Dumpkins .? ' 

Resp.  *  No ;  I  never  lost  a  shilling  by  Dumpkins, 
the  reason  for  which  may  be  that  Dumpkins  never 
owed  me  a  shilling ;  but  from  his  prcBnomen  of  "  diddle," 
I  apprehend  that  he  was  too  well  acquainted  with  joint- 
stock  companies ! ' 

Com.  '  And  your  opinion,  is,  that  he  may  have  did- 
dled Mr.  Lamb .? ' 

Resp.  '  I  conceive  it  to  be  not  unlikely.' 

Com.  '  Arid,  perhaps,  from  Mr.  Lamb's  pathetic  re- 
iteration of  his  name,  "  Diddle,  diddle,"  you  would  be 
disposed  to  infer  that  Dumpkins  had  practised  his  did- 
dling talents  upon  Mr.  L.  more  than  once  ? ' 

Resp.  '  I  think  it  probable.' 

Lamb  laughed,  and  brightened  up ;  tea  was  an- 
nounced ;  Miss  Lamb  returned.  The  cloud  had  passed 
away  from  Lamb's  spirits,  and  again  he  realized  the 
pleasure  of  evening,  which,  in  Jiis  apprehension,  was 
so  essential  to  the  pleasure  of  literature. 

On  the   table  lay  a  copy  of  Wordsworth,  in   two 


CHARLES    LAMB.  219 

volumes:  it  was  the  edition  of  Longman,  printed  about 
the  time  of  Waterloo.  Wordsworth  was  held  in  little 
consideration,  I  believe,  amongst  the  house  of  Long- 
man ;  at  any  rate,  their  editions  of  his  works  were  got 
up  in  the  most  slovenly  manner.  In  particular,  the 
table  of  contents  was  drawn  up  like  a  short-hand  bill 
of  parcels.  By  accident  the  book  lay  open  at  a  part  of 
this  table,  where  the  sonnet  beginning  — 

'  Alas  !  what  boots  the  long  laborious  quest '  — 

had  been  entered  with  mercantile  speed,  as  — 

'Alas  what  boots,' •  - 

'  Yes,'^  said  Lamb,  reading  this  entry  in  a  dolorous 
tone  of  voice,  '  he  may  well  say  that.  I  paid  Hoby 
three  guineas  for  a  pair  that  tore  like  blotting-paper, 
when  I  was  leaping  a  ditch  to  escape  a  farmer  that 
pursued  me  with  a  pitch-fork  for  trespassing.  But 
why  should  W.  wear  boots  in  Westmoreland  ?  Pray, 
advise  him  to  patronize  shoes.' 

The  mercurialities  of  Lamb  were  infinite,  and 
always  uttered  in  a  spirit  of  absolute  recklessness  for 
the  quality  or  the  prosperity  of  the  sally.  It  seemed 
to  liberate  bis  spirits  from  some  burthen  of  blackest 
melancholy  which  oppressed  it,  when  he  had  thrown  off; 
a  jest :  he  would  not  stop  one  instant  to  improve  it ;  1 
nor  did  he  care  the  value  of  a  straw  whether  it  were 
good  enough  to  be  remembered,  or  so  mediocre  as  to 
extort  high  moral  indignation  from  a  collector  who  re- 
fused to  receive  into  his  collection  of  jests  and  puns 
any  that  were  n(jt  felicitously  good  or  revoltingly  bad. 

After  tea,  Lamb  read  to  me  a  number  of  beautiful 


220  CHARLES    LAMB. 

compositions,  which  he  had  himself  taken  the  trouble  to 
copy  out  into  a  blank  paper  folio  from  unsuccessful 
authors.  Neglected  people  in  every  class  won  the 
sympathy  of  Lamb.  One  of  the  poems,  1  remember, 
was  a  very  beautiful  sonnet  from  a  volume  recently 
published  by  Lord  Thurlow  —  which,  and  Lamb's  just 
remarks  upon  it,  I  could  almost  repeat  veriatim  at  this 
moment,  nearly  twenty-seven  years  later,  if  your  limits 
would  allow  me.  But  these,  you  tell  me,  allow  of  no 
such  thing  ;  at  the  utmost  they  allow  only  twelve  lines 
more.  Now  all  the  world  knows  that  the  sonnet  itself 
would  require  fourteen  lines ;  but  take  fourteen  from 
twelve,  and  there  remains  very  little,  I  fear;  besides 
which,  T  am  afraid  two  of  my  twelve  are  already  ex- 
hausted. This  forces  me  to  interrupt  my  account  of 
Lamb's  reading,  by  reporting  the  very  accident  that  did 
interrupt  it  in  fact ;  since  that  no  less  characteristically 
expressed  Lamb's  peculiar  spirit  of  kindness,  (always 
quickening  itself  towards  the  ill-used  or  the  down- 
trodden,) than  it  had  previously  expressed  itself  in  his 
choice  of  obscure  readings.  Two  ladies  came  in,  one 
of  whom  at  least  had  sunk  in  the  scale  of  worldly  con- 
sideration. They  were  ladies  who  would  not  have 
found  much  recreation  in  literary  discussions ;  elderly, 
and  habitually  depressed.  On  their  account.  Lamb 
proposed  whist,  and  in  that  kind  effort  to  amuse  them, 
which  natually  drew  forth  some  momentary  gayeties 
from  himself,  but  not  of  a  kind  to  impress  themselves 
on  the  recollection,  the  evening  terminated." 

We  have  left  ourselves  no  room  /or  a  special  ex- 
amination of  Lamb's  writings,   some    of  which  were 


iis\ 


CHARLES  LAMB.  221 

failures,  and  some  were  so  memorably  beautiful  as  to 
be  uniques  in  their  class.  The  character  of  Lamb  it  is, 
and  the  life-struggle  of  Lamb,  that  must  fix  the  atten- 
tion of  many,  even  amongst  those  wanting  in  sensibility 
to  his  intellectual  merits.  This  character  and  thi 
^struggle,  as  we  have  already  observed,  impress  many 
traces  of  themselves  upon  Lamb's  wTitings.  Even  in 
that  view,  therefore,  they  have  a  ministerial  value  ;  but 
separately,  for  themselves,  they  have  an  independent 
value  of  the  highest  order.  Upon  this  point  we  gladly 
adopt  the  eloquent  words  of  Sergeant  Talfourd  :  — 

r     *  The  sweetness  of  Lamb's  character,  breathed  through  his 
I  writings,  was  felt  even  by  strangers  ;  but  its  heroic  aspect 
1  was  unguessed  even  by  many  of  his  friends.     Let  ihem  now 
Iconsider  it,  and  ask  if  the  annals  of  self-sacrifice  can  show 
anything  in  human  action  and  endurance  more  lovely  than  its 
self-devotion   exhibits?     It   was   not  merely  that   he   saw, 
through  the  ensanguined  cloud  of  misfortune  which  had  fallen 
upon  his  family,  the  unstained  excellence  of  his  sister,  whose 
madness  had  caused  it ;  that  he  was  ready  to  take  her  to  his 
own  home  with  reverential  affection,  and  cherish  her  through 
life ;  and  he  gave  up,  for  her  sake,  all  meaner  and  more  selfish 
love,  and  all  the  hopes  which  youth  blends  whh  the  passion 
'  which  disturbs  and  ennobles  it ;  not  even  that  he  did  all  this 
cheerfully,  without  pluming  himself  upon  his  brotherly  noble- 
ness as  a  virtue,  or  seeking  to  repay  himself  (as  some  uneasy 
*  martyrs    do)    by  small   instalments  of  long   repining ;    but 
that  he  carried  the  spirit  of  the  hour  in  which  he  first  knew 
and  took  his  course  to  his  last.     So  far  from  thinking  that 
his  sacrifice  of  youth  and  love  to  his  sister  gave  him  a  license 
to  follow  his  own  caprice  at  the  expense  of  her  feehngs,  even 
in  the  lightest  matters,  he  always  wrote  and  spoke  of  her  as 
his  wiser  self,  his  generous  benefactress,  of  whose  protecting 
care  he  was  scarcely  worthy.' 


')l 


222  CHARLES  LAMB. 

It  must  be  remembered,  also,  which  the  Sergeant 
does  not  overlook,  that  Lamb's  efforts  for  the  becoming 
support  of  his  sister  lasted  through  a  period  of  forty 
years.  Twelve  years  before  his  death,  the  munificence 
of  the  India  House,  by  granting  him  a  liberal  retiring 
allowance,  had  placed  his  own  support  under  shelter 
from  accidents  of  any  kind.  But  this  died  with  him- 
self ;  and  he  could  not  venture  to  suppose  that,  in  the 
event  of  his  own  death,  the  India  House  would  grant 
to  his  sister  the  same  allowance  as  by  custom  is 
granted  to  a  wife.  This  they  did  ;  but  not  venturing 
to  calculate  upon  such  nobility  of  patronage,  Lamb 
had  applied  himself  through  life  to  the  saving  of  a 
provision  for  his  sister  under  any  accident  to  himself. 
And  this  he  did  with  a  persevering  prudence,  so  little 
known  in  the  literary  class,  amongst  a  continued  tenor 
of  generosities,  often  so  princely  as  to  be  scarcely 
known  in  any  class. 

Was  this  man,  so  memorably  good  by  life-long 
sacrifice  of  himself,  in  any  profound  sense  a  Chris- 
tian ?  The  impression  is,  that  he  was  not.  We,  from 
private  communications  with  him,  can  undertake  to  say 
that,  according  to  his  knowledge  and  opportunities  for 
the  study  of  Christianity,  he  was.  What  has  injured 
Lamb  on  this  point  is,  that  his  early  opinions  (which, 
however,  from  the  first  were  united  with  the  deepest 
piety)  are  read  by  the  inattentive,  as  if  they  had  been 
the  opinions  of  his  mature  days;  secondly,  that  he  had 
few  religious  persons  amongst  his  friends,  which  made 
him  reserved  in  the  expression  of  his  own  views; 
thirdly,  that  in  any  case  where  he  altered  opinions  for 
the  better,  the  credit  of  the  improvement  is  assigned  to 


CHARLES    LAMB.  223 

Coleridge.  Lamb,  for  example,  beginning  life  as  a 
Unitarian,  in  not  many  years  became  a  Trinitarian. 
Coleridge  passed  through  the  same  changes  in  the 
same  order ;  and,  here,  at  least.  Lamb  is  supposed 
simply  to  have  obeyed  the  influence,  confessedly  great, 
of  Coleridge.  This,  on  our  own  knowledge  of  Lamb's 
views*,  we  pronounce  to  be  an  error.  And  the  follow- 
ing extracts  from  Lamb's  letters  will  show,  not  only 
that  he  was  religiously  disposed  on  impulses  self- 
derived,  but  that,  so  far  from  obeying  the  bias  of 
Coleridge,  he  ventured,  on  this  one  subject,  firmly  as 
regarded  the  matter,  though  humbly  as  regarded  the 
manner,  affectionately  to  reprove  Coleridge. 

In  a  letter  to  Coleridge,  written  in  1797,  the  year 
after  his  first  great  affliction,  he  says  : 

'  Coleridge,  I  have  not  one  truly  elevated  character  among 
my  acquaintance  ;  not  one  Christian;  not  one  but  undervalues 
Christianity.  Singly,  what  am  I  to  do?  Wesley — [have 
you  read  his  life?]  —  was  he  not  an  elevated  character? 
Wesley  has  said  religion  was  not  a  solitary  thing.  Alas  !  it 
is  necessarily  so  with  me,  or  next  to  solitary.  'T  is  true  you 
write  to  me;  but  correspondence  by  letter  and  personal  inti- 
macy are  widely  ditferent.  Do,  do  write  to  me ;  and  do 
some  good  to  my  mind  —  already  how  mucii  "  warped  and 
relaxed  "  by  the  world !  ' 

In  a  letter  written  about  three  months  previously,  he 
had  not  scrupled  to  blame  Coleridge  at  some  length  for 
audacities  of  religious  speculation,  which  seemed  to 
him  at  war  with  the  simplicities  of  pure  religion.  He 
«ays  : 

*  Do  continue  to  write  to  me.  I  read  your  lett-^rs  with  my 
sister,  and  they  give  us  boih  abundance  of  deligtit.     Espe- 


224 


CHARLES    LAMB. 


cially  they  please  us  two  when  you  talk  in  a  religious  strain. 
Not  but  we  are  offended  occasionally  with  a  certain  freedom 
of  expression,  a  certain  air  of  mysticism,  more  consonant  to 
the  conceits  of  pagan  philosophy  than  consistent  with  the 
humility  of  genuine  piety.' 

Then,  after  some  instances  of  what  he  blames,  he 
says  : 

'  Be  not  angry  with  me,  Coleridge.  T  wish  not  to  cavil ; 
I  know  I  cannot  instruct  you  ;  I  only  wish  to  remind  you  of 
that  humility  which  best  becometh  the  Christian  character. 
God,  in  the  New  Testament,  our  best  guide,  is  represented 
to  us  in  the  kind,  condescending,  amiable,  familiar  light  of  a 
parent;  and,  in  my  poor  mind,  'tis  best  for  us  so  to  consider 
him  as  our  heavenly  Father,  and  our  best  friend,  without 
indulging  too  bold  conceptions  of  his  character.' 

About  a  month  later,  he  says : 

'  Few  but  laugh  at  me  for  reading  my  Testament.  They 
talk  a  language  I  understand  not;  I  conceal  sentiments  that 
would  be  a  puzzle  to  them.'' 

We  see  by  this  last  quotation  where  it  was  that 
Lamb  originally  sought  for  consolation.  We  person- 
ally can  vouch  that,  at  a  maturer  period,  when  he  was 
approaching  his  fiftieth  year,  no  change  had  affected 
his  opinions  upon  that  point ;  and,  on  the  other  hand, 
that  no  changes  had  occurred  in  his  needs  for  consola- 
tion, we  see,  alas  !  in  the  records  of  his  life.  Whither, 
indeed,  could  he  fly  for  comfort,  if  not  to  his  Bible  } 
And  to  whom  was  the  Bible  an  indispensable  resource, 
if  not  to  Lamb }  We  do  not  undertake  to  say,  that  in 
his  knowledge  of  Christianity  he  was  everywhere  pro- 
found or  consistent,  but  he  was  always  earnest  in  his 


CHARLES     LA 


aspirations  after  its  spiritualities,  and  had  anlTpprehen- 
sive  sense  of  its  power. 

Charles  Lamb  is  gone  ;  his  life  was  a  continued 
struggle  in  the  service  of  love  the  purest,  and  within 
a  sphere  visited  by  little  of  contemporary 'applause. 
Even  his  intellectual  displays  won  but  a  narrow  sym- 
pathy at  any  time,  and  in  his  earlier  period  were 
saluted  with  positive  derision  and  contumely  on  the 
few  occasions  when  they  were  not  oppressed  by  entire 
neglect.  But  slowly  all  things  right  themselves.  All 
merit,  which  is  founded  in  truth,  and  is  strong  enough, 
reaches  by  sweet  exhalations  in  the  end  a  higher 
sensory  ;  reaches  higher  organs  of  discernment,  lodged 
in  a  selector  audience.  But  the  original  obtuseness  or 
vulgarity  of  feeling  that  thwarted  Lamb's  just  estima- 
tion in  life,  will  continue  to  thwart  its  popular  diffusion. 
There  are  even  some  that  continue  to  regard  him  with 
the  old  hostility.  And  we,  therefore,  standing  by  the 
side  of  Lamb's  grave,  seemed  to  hear,  on  one  side, 
(but  in  abated  tones,)  strains  of  the  ancient  malice  — 
'  This  man,  that  thought  himself  to  be  somebody,  is 
dead  —  is  buried  —  is  forgotten!'  and,  on  the  other 
side,  seemed  to  hear  ascending,  as  with  the  solemnity 
of  an  anthem  — '  This  man,  that  thought  himself  to 
be  nobody,  is  dead  —  is  buried ;  his  life  has  been 
searched  ;  and  his  memory  is  hallowed  for  ever  ! ' 


15 


NOTES 


Note  1.  Page  1G8. 
^ Scriptural^  we  call  it,  because  this  element  of  thought,  so  indis- 
pensable to  a  profound  philosophy  of  morals,  is  not  simply  more 
used  in  Scripture  than  elsewhere,  but  is  so  exclusively  significant 
or  intelligible  amidst  the  correlative  ideas  of  Scripture,  as  to  be 
absolutely  insusceptible  of  translation  into  classical  Greek  or 
classical  Latin.  It  is  disgraceful  that  more  reflection  has  not  been 
directed  to  the  vast  causes  and  consequences  of  so  pregnant  a  truth. 

Note  2.  Page  ISO. 
'  Poor  S.  T.  C— The  affecting  expression  by  which  Coleridge 
indicates  himself  in  the  few  lines  written  during  his  last  illness  for 
an  inscription  upon  his  grave  ;  lines  ill  constructed  in  point  of 
diction  and  compression,  but  otherwise  speaking  from  the  depths  of 
his  heart. 

Note  3.  Page  199. 
It  is  right  to  remind  the  reader  of  this,  for  a  reason  applying 
forcibly  to  the  present  moment,  Michelet  has  taxed  Englishmen 
with  yielding  to  national  animosities  in  the  case  of  Joan,  having  no 
plea  whatever  for  that  insinuation  but  the  single  one  drawn  from 
Shakspeare's  Henry  VI.  To  this  the  answer  is,  first,  that  Shak- 
speare's  share  in  that  trilogy  is  not  nicely  ascertained.  Secondly, 
that  M.  Michelet  forgot  (or,  which  is  far  worse,  not  forgetting  it,  he 
dissembled)  the  fact,  that  in  undertaking  a  series  of  dramas  upon 
the  basis  avowedly  of  national  chronicles,  and  for  the  very  purpose 
of  profiting  by  old  traditionary  recollections  connected  with  ances- 


228  CHARLES    LAMB. 

tral  glories,  it  was  mere  lunacy  to  recast  the  circumstances  at  the 
bidding  of  antiquarian  research,  so  as  entirely  to  disturb  these 
glories.  Besides  that,  to  Shakspeare's  age  no  such  spirit  of  re- 
search had  blossomed.  Writing  for  the  stage,  a  man  would  have 
risked  lapidation  by  uttering  a  whisper  in  that  direction.  And) 
even  if  not,  what  sense  could/  there  have  been  in  openly  running 
counter  to  the  very  motive  that  had  originally  prompted  that  par- 
ticular class  of  chronicle  plays  ?  Thirdly,  if  one  Englishman  had, 
in  a  memorable  situation,  adopted  the  popular  view  of  Joan's  con- 
duct, {popular  as  much  in  France  as  in  England;)  on  the  other 
hand,  fifty  years  before  M.  Michelet  was  writing  this  flagrant  injus- 
tice, another  Englishman  (viz.,  Soulhey)  had,  in  an  epic  poem, 
reversed  this  mis-judgment,  and  invested  the  shepherd  girl  with  a 
glory  nowhere  else  accorded  to  her,  unless  indeed  by  Schiller. 
Fourthly,  we  are  not  entitled  to  view  as  an  attack  upon  Joanna, 
what,  in  the  worst  construction,  is  but  an  unexamining  adoption  of 
the  contemporary  historical  accounts.  A  poet  or  a  dramatist  is  not 
responsible  for  the  accuracy  of  chronicles.  But  what  is  an  attack 
upon  Joan,  being  briefly  the  foulest  and  obscenest  attempt  ever 
made  to  stifle  the  grandeur  of  a  great  human  struggle,  viz.,  the 
French  burlesque  poem  of  La  Pucelle  —  what  memorable  man  was 
it  that  wrote  that  7  Was  he  a  Frenchman,  or  was  he  not  ?  That 
M.  Michelet  should  pretend  to  have  forgotten  this  vilest  of  pasqui- 
nades, is  more  shocking  to  the  general  sense  of  justice  than  any 
special  untruth  as  to  Shakpeare  can  be  to  the  particular  nationality 
of  an  Englishman. 

Note  4.     Page  216. 
The  story  which   furnishes  a  basis  to  the  fine  ballad  in  Percy's 
Reliques,  and  to  the  Canterbury  Tale  of  Chaucer's  Lady  Abbess. 


GOETHE. 

5>6 


John  Wolfgang  von  Goethe,  a  man  of  command- 
ing influence  in  the  literature  of  modern  Germany 
throughout  the  latter  half  of  his  long  life,  and  possess- 
ing two  separate  claims  upon  our  notice  ;  one  in  right 
of  his  own  unquestionable  talents  ;  and  another  much 
stronger,  tTiough  less  direct,  arising  out  of  his  position, 
and  the  extravaganli,  partisanship  put  forward  on  his 
behalf  for  the  last  forty  years.  The  literary  body  in  all 
countries,  and  for  reasons  which  rest  upon  a  sounder 
basis  than  that  of  private  jealousies,  have  always  been 
disposed  to  a  republican  sinrplicity  in  all  that  regards 
the  assumption  of  mnk  and  personal  pretensions. 
Valeat  quantum  valere  pot  est  ^  is  the  form  of  license  to 
every  man's  ambition,  coupled  with  its  caution.  Let 
his  influence  and  authority  be  commensurate  with  his 
attested  value  ;  and,  because  no  man  in  the  present  in- 
firmity of  human  speculation,  and  the  present  multi- 
formity of  human  power  can  hope  for  more  than  a  very 
limited  superiority,  there  is  an  end  at  once  to  all  also- 
lute  dictatorship.  The  dictatorship  in  any  case  could 
be  only  relative,  and  in  relation  to  a  single  department 
of  art  or  knowledge  ;  and  this  for  a  reason  stronger  even 


/^' 


y 


230  GOETHE. 

than  that  already  noticed,  viz.,  the  vast  extent  of  the 
field  on  which  the  intellect  is  now  summoned  to  employ 
itself.  That  objection,  as  it  applies  only  to  the  degree 
of  the  difficulty,  might  be  met  by  a  corresponding  de- 
gree of  mental  energy  ;  such  a  thing  may  be  supposed, 
at  least.  But  another  difficulty  there  is  of  a  profounder 
character  which  cannot  be  so  easily  parried.  Those 
who  have  reflected  at  all  upon  the  fine  arts,  know  that 
power  of  one  kind  is  often  inconsistent,  positively  in- 
compatible with  power  of  another  kind.  For  example, 
the  dramatic  mind  is  incompatible  with  the  epic.  And 
though  we  should  consent  to  suppose  that  some  intellect 
might  arise  endowed  upon  a  scale  of  such  angelic  com- 
prehensiveness, as  to  vibrate  equally  and  indifferently 
towards  either  pole,  still  it  is  next  to  impossible,  in  the 
exercise  and  culture  of  the  two  powers,  but  some  bias 
must  arise  which  would  give  that  advantage  to  the  one 
over  the  other  which  the  right  arm  has  over  the  left. 
But  the  supposition,  the  very  case  put,  is  baseless,  and 
countenanced  by  no  precedent.  Yet,  under  this  pre- 
vious difficulty,  and  with  regard  to  a  literature  con- 
vulsed, if  any  ever  was,  by  an  almost  total  anarchy, 
it  is  a  fact  notorious  to  all  who  take  an  interest  in 
ermany  and  its  concerns,  that  Goethe  did  in  one  way 
or  other,  through  the  length  and  breadth  of  that  vast 
countiy,  establish  a  supremacy  of  influence  wholly 
unexampled  ;  a  supremacy  indeed  perilous  in  a  less 
honorable  man,  to  those  whom  he  might  chance  to 
hate,  and  with  regard  to  himself  thus  far  unfortunate, 
that  it  conferred  upon  every  work  proceeding  from  his 
pen  a  sort  of  papal  indulgence,  an  immunity  from 
criticism,  or  even  from  the  appeals  of  good  sense,  such 


GOETHE.  231 

as  it  is  not  wholesome  that  any  man  should  enjoy.  Yet 
we  repeat  that  German  literature  was  and  is  jn  a  condi- 
tion of  total  anarchy.  With  this  solitary  exception,  no 
name,  even  in  the  most  narrow  section  of  knowledge 
or  of  power,  has  ever  been  able  in  that  country  to 
challenge  unconditional  reverence ;  whereas,  with  us 
and  in  France,  name  the  science,  name  the  art,  and 
we  will  name  the  dominant  professor;  a  difference 
which  partly  arises  out  of  the  fact  that  England  and 
France  are  governed  in  their  opinions  by  two  or  three 
capital  cities,  whilst  Gerhnany  looks  for  its  leadership  to 
as  many  cities  as  there  are  residenzen  and  universities. 
For  instance,  the  little  territory  with  which  Goethe  was 
connected  presented  no  less  than  two  such  public  lights ; 
Weimar,  the  residenz  or  privileged  abode  of  the  Grand 
Duke,  and  Jena,  the  university  founded  by  that  house. 
Partly,  however,  this  difference  may  be  due  to  the 
greater  restlessness,  and  to  the  greater  energy  as  re- 
spects mere  speculation,  of  the  German  mind.  But  no 
matter  whence  arising,  or  how  interpreted,  the  fact  is 
what  we  have  described ;  absolute  confusion,  the  *  an- 
arch old'  of  Milton,  is  the  one  deity  whose  sceptre  is 
there  paramount ;  and  yet  there  it  was,  in  that  very 
realm  of  chaos,  that  Goethe  built  his  throne.  That  he 
must  have  looked  with  trepidation  and  perplexity  upon 
his  wild  empire  and  its  '  dark  foundations,'  may  be  sup- 
posed. The  tenure  was  uncertain  to  Jiim  as  regarded 
its  duration ;  to  us  it  is  equally  uncertain,  and  in  fact 
mysterious,  as  regards  its  origin.  Meantime  the  mere 
fact,  contrasted  with  the  general  tendencies  of  the  Ger- 
man literary  world,  is  sufficient  to  justify  a  notice,  some- 
what circumstantial,  of  the  man  in  whose  favor,  whether 


232  GOETHE. 

naturally  by  force  of  genius,  or  by  accident  concurring 
with  intrigue,  so  unexampled  a  result  was  effected. 

Goethe  was  born  at  noonday  on  the  28th  of  August, 
1749,  in  his  father's  house  at  Frankfort  on  the  Maine. 
The  circumstances  of  his  birth  were  thus  far  remarka- 
ble, that,  unless  Goethe's  vanity  deceived  him,  they  led 
to  a  happy  revolution  hitherto  retarded  by  female  deli- 
cacy falsely  directed.  From  some  error  of  the  midwife 
who  attended  his  mother,  the  infant  Goethe  appeared 
to  be  still-born.  Sons  there  were  as  yet  none  from  this 
marriage;  everybody  was  therefore  interested  in  the 
child's  life  ;  and  the  panic  which  arose  in  consequence, 
having  survived  its  immediate  occasion,  was  improved 
into  a  public  resolution,  (for  which  no  doubt  society  stood 
ready  at  that  moment,)  to  found  some  course  of  public 
instruction  from  this  time  forward  for  those  who  under- 
took professionally  the  critical  duties  of  accoucheur. 

We  have  noticed  the  house  in  which  Goethe  was 
born,  as  well  as  the  city.  Both  were  remarkable,  and 
fitted  to  leave  lasting  impressions  upon  a  young  person 
of  sensibility.  As  to  the  city,  its  antiquity  is  not  merely 
venerable,  but  almost  mysterious ;  towers  were  at  that 
time  to  be  found  in  the  mouldering  lines  of  its  earliest 
defences,  which  -belonged  to  the  age  of  Charlemagne, 
or  one  still  earlier ;  battlements  adapted  to  a  mode  of 
warfare  anterior  even  to  that  of  feudalism  or  romance. 
The  customs,  usages,  and  local  privileges  of  Frankfort, 
and  the  rural  districts  adjacent,  were  of  a  corresponding 
character.  Festivals  were  annually  celebrated  at  a 
short  distance  from  the  walls,  which  had  descended 
from  a  dateless  antiquity.  Everything  which  met  the 
eye  spoke  the  language  of  elder  ages ;  whilst  the  river 


GOETHE.  233 

on  which  the  place  was  seated,  its  great  fair,  which 
still  held  the  rank  of  the  greatest  in  Christendom,  and 
its  connection  with  the  throne  of  Ceesar  and  his  inaugu- 
ration, by  giving  to  Frankfort  an  interest  and  a  public 
character  in  the  eyes  of  all  Germany,  had  the  effect  of 
countersigning,  as  it  were,  by  state  authority,  the  im- 
portance which  she  otherwise  challenged  to  her  ances- 
tral distinctions.  Fit  house  fo?  such  a  city,  and  in  due 
keeping  with  the  general  scenery,  was  that  of  Goethe's 
father.  It  had  in  fact  been  composed  out  of  two  con- 
tiguous houses  ;  that  accident  had  made  it  spacious  and 
rambling  in  its  plan ;  whilst  a  further  irregularity  had 
grown  out  of  the  original  difference  in  point  of  level 
between  the  corresponding  stories  of  the  two  houses, 
making  it  necessary  to  connect  the  rooms  of  the  same 
suite  by  short  flights  of  steps.  Some  of  these  features 
were  no  doubt  removed  by  the  recast  of  the  house  under 
the  name  of  '  repairs,'  (to  evade  a  city  by-law,)  after- 
wards executed  by  his  father ;  but  such  was  the  house 
of  Goethe's  infancy,  and  in  all  other  circumstances  of 
style  and  furnishing  equally  antique. 

The  spirit  of  society  in  Frankfort,  without  a  court,  a 
university,  or  a  learned  body  of  any  extent,  or  a  resi- 
dent nobility  in  its  neighborhood,  could  not  be  expected 
to  display  any  very  high  standard  of  polish.  Yet,  on 
the  other  hand,  as  an  independent  city,  governed  by  its 
own  separate  laws  and  tribunals,  (that  privilege  of 
autonomy  so  dearly  valued  by  ancient  Greece,)  and 
possessing  besides  a  resident  corps  of  jurisprudents  and 
of  agents  in  various  ranks  for  managing  the  interests 
of  the  German  emperor  and  other  princes,  Frankfort 
had  the  means  within  herself  of  giving  a  liberal  tone 


234  GOETHE. 

to  the  pursuits  of  her  superior  citizens,  and  of  co- 
operating in  no  inconsiderable  degree  with  the  general 
movement  of  the  times,  political  or  intellectual.  The 
memoirs  of  Goethe  himself,  and  in  particular  the  pic- 
ture there  given  of  his  own  family,  as  well  as  other 
contemporary  glimpses  of  German  domestic  society  in 
those  days,  arc  sufficient  to  show  that  much  knowledge, 
muck  true  cultivation  of  mind,  much  sound  refinement 
of  taste,  were  then  distributed  through  the  middle 
classes  of  German  society  ;  meaning  by  that  very  in<- 
determinate  expression  those  classes  which  for  Frank- 
fort composed  the  aristocracy,  viz.,  all  who  had  daily 
leisure,  and  regular  funds  for  employing  it  to  advantage. 
It  is  not  necessary  to  add,  because  that  is  a  fact  appli- 
cable to  all  stages  of  society,  that  Frankfort  presented 
many  and  various  specimens  of  original  talent,  moving 
upon  all  directions  of  human  speculation. 

Yet,  with  this  general  allowance  made  for  the  capa- 
cities of  the  place,  it  is  too  evident  that,  for  the  most 
part,  they  lay  inert  and  undeveloped.  In  many  respects 
Frankfort  resembled  an  English  cathedral  city,  accord- 
ing to  the  standard  of  such  places  seventy  years  ago, 
not,  that  is  to  say,  like  Carlisle  in  this  day,  where  a 
considerable  manufacture  exists,  but  like  Chester  as  it 
is  yet.  The  chapter  of  a  cathedral,  the  resident  eccle- 
siastics attached  to  the  duties  of  so  large  an  establish- 
ment, men  always  well  educated,  and  generally  having 
families,  compose  the  original  nucleus,  around  which 
soon  gathers  all  that  part  of  the  local  gentry  who,  for 
any  purpose,  whether  of  education  for  their  children, 
or  of  social  enjoyment  for  themselves,  seek  the  advan- 
tages of  a  town.     Hither  resort  all  the  timid  old  ladies 


GOETHE 


who  wish  for  conversation,  or  other  forms  of  social 
amusement ;  hither  resort  the  valetudinarians,  male  or 
female,  by  way  of  commanding  superior  medical  advice 
at  a  cost  not  absolutely  ruinous  to  themselves;  and  mul- 
titudes besides,  with  narrow  incomes,  to  whom  these 
quiet  retreats  are  so  many  cities  of  refuge,  t-— -" 

Such,  in  one  view,  they  really  are  ;  and  yet  in  an- 
other they  have  a  vicious  constitution.  Cathedral  cities 
in  England,  imperial  cities  without  manufactures  in  Ger- 
many, are  all  in  an  improgressive  condition.  The  pub- 
lic employments  of  every  class  in  such  places  continue 
the  same  from  generation  to  generation.  The  amount 
of  superior  families  oscillates  rather  than  changes;  that 
is,  it  fluctuates  within  fixed  limits;  and,  for  all  infe- 
rior families,  being  composed  either  of  shop-keepers  or 
of  menial  servants,  they  are  determined  by  the  number, 
or,  which,  on  a  large  average,  is  the  same,  by  the  pecu- 
niary power,  of  their  employers.  Hence  it  arises,  that 
room  is  made  for  one  man,  in  whatever  line  of  depen- 
dence, only  by  the  death  of  another  ;  and  the  constant 
increments  of  the  population  are  carried  off  into  other 
cities.  Not  less  is  the  difference  of  such  cities  as 
regards  the  standard  of  manners.  How  striking  is  the 
soft  and  urbane  tone  of  the  lower  orders  in  a  cathedral 
city,  or  in  a  watering-place  dependent  upon  ladies, 
contrasted  with  the  bold,  often  insolent  demeanor  of  a 
self-dependent  artisan  or  mutinous  mechanic  of  Man- 
chester and  Glasgow. 

Children,  however,  are  interested  in  the  state  of 
society  around  them,  chiefly  as  it  affects  their  parents. 
Those  of  Goethe  were  respectable,  and  perhaps  tolera- 
bly representative  of  the  general  condition  in  their  own 


236  GOETHE. 

rank.  An  English  authoress  of  great  talent,  in  her 
Characteristics  of  Goethe,  has  too  much  countenanced 
the  notion  that  he  owed  his  intellectual  advantages 
exclusively  to  his  mother.  Of  this  there  is  no  proof. 
His  mother  wins  more  esteem  from  the  reader  of  this 
day,  because  she  was  a  cheerful  woman  of  serene 
temper,  brought  into  advantageous  comparison  with  a 
husband  much  older  than  herself,  whom  circumstances 
had  rendered  moody,  fitful,  sometimes  capricious,  and 
confessedly  obstinate  in  that  degree  which  Pope  has 
taught  us  to  think  connected  with  inveterate  error  : 

*  Stiff  in  opinion,  always  in  the  wrong,' 

unhappily  presents  an  association  too  often  actually 
occurring  in  nature,  to  leave  much  chance  for  error  in 
presuming  either  quality  from  the  other.  And,  in  fact, 
Goethe's  father  was  so  uniformly  obstinate  in  pressing 
his  own  views  upon  all  who  belonged  to  him,  whenever 
he  did  come  forward  in  an  attitude  of  activity,  that  his 
family  had  much  reason  to  be  thankful  for  the  rarity  of 
such  displays.  Fortunately  for  them,  his  indolence 
neutralized  his  obstinacy.  And  the  worst  shape  in 
which  his  troubjesome  temper  showed  itself,  was  in 
what  concerned  the  religious  reading  of  the  family. 
Once  begun,  the  worst  book  as  well  as  the  best,  the 
longest  no  less  than  the  shortest,  was  to  be  steadfastly 
read  through  to  the  last  word  of  the  last  volume ;  no 
excess  of  yawning  availed  to  obtain  a  reprieve,  not, 
adds  his  son,  though  he  were  himself  the  leader  of  the 
yawners.  As  an  illustration  he  mentions  Bowyer's 
History  of  the  Popes ;  which  awful  series  of  records, 
the  catacombs,  as  it  were,  in  the  palace  of  history. 


GOETHE*  237 

were  actually  traversed  from  one  end  to  the  other  of 
the  endless  suite  by  the  unfortunate  house  of  Goethe. 
Allowing,  however,  for  the  father's  unamiableness  in 
this  one  point,  upon  all  intellectual  ground  both  parents 
seem  to  have  met  very  much  upon  a  level.  Two  illus- 
trations may  suffice,  one  of  which  occurred  during  the 
infancy  of  Goethe.  The  science  of  education  was  at  that 
time  making  its  first  rude  motions  towards  an  ampler 
development;  and,  amongst  other  reforms  then  floating 
in  the  general  mind,  was  one  for  eradicating  the  child- 
ish fear  of  ghosts,  &;c.  The  young- Goethes,  as  it  hap- 
pened, slept  not  in  separate  beds  only,  but  in  separate 
rooms  ;  and  not  unfrequently  the  poor  children,  under 
the  stinging  terrors  of  their  lonely  situation,  stole  away 
from  their  '  forms,'  to  speak  in  the  hunter's  phrase,  and 
sought  to  rejoin  each  other.  But  in  these  attempts  they 
were  liable  to  surprises  from  the  enemy ;  papa  and 
mamma  were  both  on  the  alert,  and  often  intercepted 
the  young  deserter  by  a  cross  march  or  an  ambuscade  ; 
in  which  cases  each  had  a  separate  policy  for  enforcing 
obedience.  The  father,  upon  his  general  system  of 
'  perseverance,'  compelled  the  fugitive  back  to  his 
quarters,  and,  in  effect,  exhorted  him  to  persist  in  being 
frightened  out  of  his  wits.  To  his  wife's  gentle  heart 
that  course  appeared  cruel,  and  she  reclaimed  the  de- 
linquent by  bribes ;  the  peaches  which  her  garden 
walls  produced  being  the  fund  from  which  she  chiefly 
drew  her  supplies  for  this  branch  of  the  secret  service. 
What  were  her  winter  bribes,  when  the  long  nights 
would  seem  to  lie  heaviest  on  the  exchequer,  is  not  said. 
Speaking  seriously,  no  man  of  sense  can  suppose  that 
a  course  of  suffering  from  terrors  the  most  awful,  under 


238  GOETHE. 

whatever  influence  supported,  whether  under  the  naked 
force  of  compulsion,  or  of  that  connected  with  bribes, 
could  have  any  final  effect  in  mitigating  the  passion  of 
awe,  connected,  by  our  very  dreams,  with  the  shadowy 
and  the  invisible,  or  in  tranquillizing  the  infantine 
imagination. 

A  second  illustration  involves  a  great  moral  event  in 
the  history  of  Goethe,  as  it  was,  in  fact,  the  first  occa- 
sion of  his  receiving  impressions  at  war  with  his  re- 
ligious creed.  Piety  is  so  beautiful  an  ornament  of  the 
youthful  mind,  doubt  or  distrust  so  unnatural  a  growth 
from  confiding  innocence,  that  an  infant  free-thinker  is 
heard  of  not  so  much  with  disgust  as  with  perplexity. 
A  sense  of  the  .ludicrous  is  apt  to  intermingle ;  and  we 
lose  our  natural  horror  of  the  result  in  wonder  at  its 
origin.  Yet  in  this  instance  there  is  no  room  for  doubt; 
the  fact  and  the  occasion  are  both  on  record  ;  there  can 
be  no  question  about  the  date  ;  and,  finally,  the  accuser 
is  no  other  than  the  accused.  Goethe's  own  pen  it  is 
which  proclaims,  that  already,  in  the  early  part  of  his 
seventh  year,  his  reliance  upon  God  as  a  moral  gov- 
ernor had  sufliered  a  violent  shock,  was  shaken,  if  not 
undermined.  On  the  1st  of  November,  17^,5,  occur- 
red the  great  earthquake  at  Lisbon.  Upon  a  double 
account,  this  event  occupied  the  thoughts  of  all  Europe 
for  an  unusual  term  of  time;  both  as  an  expression 
upon  a  larger  scale  than  usual  of  the  mysterious  physi- 
cal agency  concerned  in  earthquakes,  and  also  for  the 
awful  human  tragedy  ^  which  attended  either  the  earth- 

^  Of  this  no  picture  can  ever  hope  to  rival  that  hasty  one  sketched 
in  the  letter  of  the  chaplain  to  the  Lisbon  factorj\  The  plague  of 
Athens  as  painted  by  Thucydides  or  Lucretius,  nay  even  the  fabu- 


GOETHE.  239 

quake  itself,  or  its  immediate  sequel  in  the  sudden 
irruption  of  the  Tagus.  Sixty  thousand  persons,  vic- 
tims to  the  dark  power  in  its  first  or  its  second  avatar^ 
attested  the  Titanic  scale  upon  which  it  worked.  Here 
it  was  that  the  shallow  piety  of  the  Germans  found  a 
stumbling-block.  Those  who  have  read  any  circum- 
stantial history  of  the  physical  signs  which  preceded 
this  earthquake,  are  aware  that  in  England  and  North- 
ern Germany  many  singular  phenomena  were  observed, 
more  or  less  manifestly  connected  with  the  same  dark 
agency  which  terminated  at  Lisbon,  and  running  before 
this  final  catastrophe  at  times  so  accurately  varying 
with  the  distances,  as  to  furnish  something  like  a  scale 
for  measuring  the  velocity  with  which  it  moved.  These 
German  phenomena,  circulated  rapidly  over  all  Ger- 
many by  the  journals  of  every  class,  had  seemed  to 
give  to  the  Germans  a  nearer  and  more  domestic  in- 
terest in  the  great  event,  than  belonged  to  them  merely 
in  their  universal  character  of  humanity.  It  is  also 
well  known  to  observers  of  national  characteristics,  that 
amongst  the  Germans  the  household  charities  the 
pieties  of  the  hearth^  as  they  may  be  called,  exist,  if 
not  really  in  grccfter  strength,  yet  with  much  less  of 
the  usual  balances  or  restraints.  A  German  father,  for 
example,  is  like  the  grandfather  of  other  nations  ;  and 
thus  a  piety,  which  in  its  own  nature  scarcely  seems 
liable  to  excess,  takes,  in  its  external  aspect,  too  often 
an  air  of  effeminate  imbecility.     These  two  considera- 

lous  plague  of  London  by  De  Foe,  contain  no  scenes  or  situations 
equal  in  effect  to  some  in  this  plain  historic  statement.  Nay,  it 
would  perhaps  be  difficult  to  produce  a  passage  from  Ezekiel,  from 
iEschylus,  or  from  Shakspeare,  which  would  so  profoundly  startle 
the  sense  of  sublimity  as  one  or  two  of  his  incidents. 


240  GOETHE. 

tions  are  necessary  to  explain  the  intensity  with  which 
this  Lisbon  tragedy  laid  hold  of  the  German  mind,  and 
chiefly  under  the  one  single  aspect  of  its  undistinguish- 
ing  fury.  Women,  children,  old  men  —  these,  doubt- 
less, had  been  largely  involved  in  the  perishing  sixty 
thousand ;  and  that  reflection,  it  would  seem  from 
Goethe's  account,  had  so  far  embittered  the  sympathy 
of  the  Germans  with  their  distant  Portuguese  brethren, 
that,  in  the  Frankfort  discussions,  sullen  murmurs  had 
gradually  ripened  into  bold  impeachments  of  Provi- 
dence. There  can  be  no  gloomier  form  of  infidelity 
than  that  which  questions  the  moral  attributes  of  the 
Great  Being,  in  whose  hands  are  the  final  destinies  of 
us  all.  Such,  however,  was  the  form  of  Goethe's 
earliest  scepticism,  such  its  origin  ;  caught  up  from  the 
very  echoes  which  rang  through  the  streets  of  Frankfort 
when  the  subject  occupied  all  men's  minds.  And  such, 
for  anything  that  appears,  continued  to  be  its  form 
thenceforwards  to  the  close  of  his  life,  if  speculations 
so  crude  could  be  said  to  have  any  form  at  all.  Many 
are  the  analogies,  some  close  ones,  between  England 
and  Germany  with  regard  to  the  circle  of  changes  they 
have  run  through,  political  or  social,  for  a  century  back. 
The  challenges  are  frequent  to  a  comparison  ;  and 
sometimes  the  result  would  be  to  the  advantage  of  Ger- 
many, more  often  to  ours.  But  in  religious  philosophy, 
which  in  reality  is  the  true  popular  philosophy,  how 
vast  is  the  superiority  on  the  side  of  this  country.  Not 
a  shopkeeper  or  mechanic,  we  may  venture  to  say,  but 
would  have  felt  tliis  obvious  truth,  that  surely  the  Lis- 
bon earthquake  yielded  no  fresh  lesson,  no  peculiar 
moral,  beyond  what  belonged  to  every  man's  experi- 


GOETHE.  241 

ence  in  every  age.  A  passage  in  the  New  Testament 
about  the  fall  of  the  tower  of  Siloam,  and  the  just  con- 
struction of  that  event,  had  already  anticipated  the 
difficulty,  if  such  it  could  be  thought.  Not  to  mention, 
that  calamities  upon  the  same  scale  in  the  earliest  age 
of  Christianity,  the  fall  of  the  amphitheatre  at  Fidense, 
or  the  destrucftion  of  Pompeii,  had  presented  the  same 
problem  as  the  Lisbon  earthquake.  Nay,  it  is  pre- 
sented daily  in  the  humblest  individual  case,  where 
wrong  is  triumphant  over  right,  or  innocence  con- 
founded with  guilt  in  one  common  disaster.  And  that 
the  parents  of  Goethe  should  have  authorized  his  error, 
if  only  by  their  silence,  argues  a  degree  of  ignorance 
in  them,  which  could  not  have  co-existed  with  much 
superior  knowledge  in  the  public  mind. 

Goethe,  in  his  Memoirs,  (Book  vi.,)  commends  his 
father  for  the  zeal  with  which  he  superintended  the 
education  of  his  children.  But  apparently  it  was  a 
zeal  without  knowledge.  Many  things  were  taught 
imperfectly,  but  all  casually,  and  as  chance  suggested 
them.  Italian  was  studied  a  little,  because  the  elder 
Goethe  had  made  an  Italian  tour,  and  had  collected 
some  Italian  books,  and  engravings  by  Italian  masters. 
Hebrew  was  studied  a  little,  because  Goethe  the  son 
had  a  fancy  for  it,  partly  with  a  view  to  theology,  and 
partly  because  there  was  a  Jewish  quarter,  gloomy  and 
sequestrated,  in  the  city  of  Frankfort.  French  offered 
itself  no  doubt  on  many  suggestions,  but  originally  on 
occasion  of  a  French  theatre,  supported  by  the  staff  of 
the  French  army  when  quartered  in  the  same  city. 
Latin  was  gathered  in  a  random  way  from  a  daily 
sense  of  its  necessity.  English  upon  the  temptation  of 
16 


242  GOETHE. 

a  stranger's  advertisement,  promising  upon  moderate 
terms  to  teach  that  language  in  four  weeks  ;  a  proof,  by 
the  way,  that  the  system  of  bold  innovations  in  the  art 
of  tuition  had  already  commenced.  Riding  and  fencing 
were  also  attempted  under  masters  apparently  not  very 
highly  qualified,  and  in  the  same  desultory  style  of  ap- 
plication. Dancing  was  taught  to  his  family,  strange  as 
it  may  seem,  by  Mr.  Goethe  himself.  There  is  good 
reason  to  believe  that  not  one  of  all  these  accomplish- 
ments was  possessed  by  Goethe,  when  ready  to  visit  the 
university,  in  a  degree  which  made  it  practically  of  any 
use  to  him.  Drawing  and  music  were  pursued  con- 
fessedly as  amusements;  and  it  would  be  difficult  to 
mention  any  attainment  whatsoever  which  Goethe  had 
carried  to  a  point  of  excellence  in  the  years  which  he 
spent  under  his  father's  care,  unless  it  were  his-mastery 
over  the  common  artifices  of  metre  and  the  common 
topics  of  rhetoric,  which  fitted  him  for  writing  what  are 
called  occasional  poems  and  impromptus.  This  talent 
he  possessed  in  a  remarkable  degree,  and  at  an  early 
age  ;  but  he  owed  its  cultivation  entirely  to  himself. 

In  a  city  so  orderly  as  Frankfort,  and  in  a  station 
privileged  from  all  the  common  hardships  of  poverty, 
it  can  hardly  be  expected  that  many  incidents  should 
arise,  of  much  separate  importance  in  themselves,  to 
break  the  monotony  of  life  ;  and  the  mind  of  Goethe 
was  not  contemplative  enough  to  create  a  value  for 
common  occurrences  through  any  peculiar  impressions 
which  he  had  derived  from  them.  In  the  years  1763 
and  1764,  when  he  must  have  been  from  fourteen  to 
fifteen  years  old,  Goethe  witnessed  the  inauguration 
and  coronation  of  a  king  of  the  Romans,  a  solemn 


GOETHE.  243 

spectacle  connected  by  prescription  with  the  city  of 
Frankfort.  He  describes  it  circumstantially,  but  with 
very  little  feeling,  in  his  Memoirs.  Probably  the  pre- 
vailing sentiment,  on  looking  back  at  least  to  this 
transitory  splendor  of  dress,  processions,  and  ceremo- 
nial forms,  was  one  of  cynical  contempt.  But  this  he 
could  not  express,  as  a  person  closely  connected  with 
a  German  court,  and  without  giving  much  and  various 
offence.  It  is  with  some  timidity  even  that  he  hazards 
a  criticism  upon  single  parts  of  the  costume  adopted  by 
some  of  the  actors  in  that  gorgeous  scene.  White  silk 
stockings,  and  pumps  of  the  common  form,  he  objects 
to  as  •  out  of  harmony  with,  the  antique  and  heraldic 
aspects  of  the  general  costume,  and  ventures  to  suggest 
either  boots  or  sandals  as  an  improvement.  Had  Goethe 
felt  himself  at  liberty  from  all  restraints  of  private  con- 
sideration in  composing  these  memoirs,  can  it  be  doubted 
that  he  would  have  taken  his  retrospect  of  this  Frank- 
fort inauguration  from  a  different  station  ;  from  the 
station  of  that  stern  revolution  which,  within  his  own 
time  and  partly  under  his  own  eyes,  had  shattered  the 
whole  imperial  system  of  thrones,  in  whose  equipage 
this  gay  pageant  made  so  principal  a  figure,  had 
humbled  Caesar  himself  to  the  dust,  and  left  him  an 
emperor  without  an  empire  ?  We  at  least,  for  our  parts, 
could  not  read  without  some  emotion  one  little  incident 
of  these  gorgeous  scenes  recorded  by  Goethe,  namely, 
that  when  the  emperor,  on  rejoining  his  wife  for  a  few 
moments,  held  up  to  her  notice  his  own  hands  and  arms 
arrayed  in  the  antique  habiliments  of  Charlemagne, 
Maria  Theresa  —  she  whose  children  were  summoned 
to  so  sad  a  share  in  the  coming  changes  —  gave  way 


244  GOETHE. 

to  sudden  bursts  of  loud  laughter,  audible  to  the  whole 
populace  below  her.  That  laugh,  on  surveying  the 
departing  pomps  of  Charlemagne,  must,  in  any  con- 
templative ear,  have  rung  with  a  sound  of  deep  signifi- 
cance, and  with  something  of  the  same  effect  which 
belongs  to  a  figure  of  death  introduced  by  a  painter,  as 
mixing  in  the  festal  dances  of  a  bridal  assembly. 

These  pageants  of  1763-64  occupy  a  considerable 
space  in  Goethe's  iMemoirs,  and  with  some  logical  pro- 
priety at  least,  in  consideration  of  their  being  exclusively 
attached  to  Frankfort,  and  connected  by  manifold  links 
of  person  and  office  with  the   privileged  character  of 
the  city.     Perhaps  he  might  feel  a  sort  of  narrow  local 
patriotism  in  recalling  these  scenes  to  public  notice  by 
description,  at  a  time  when  they  had  been  irretrievably 
extinguished    as    realities.     But,    after    making   every 
allowance  for  their  local  value  to  a  Frankfort  family, 
and  for  their  memorable  splendor,  we  may  venture  to 
suppose  that  by  far  the  most  impressive  remembrances 
which  had  gathered  about  the  boyhood  of  Goethe,  were 
those  which   pointed   to    Frederick  of  Prussia.     This 
singular  man,  so  imbecile  as  a  pretender  to  philosophy 
and  new  lights,  so  truly  heroic  under  misfortunes,  was 
the  first  German  who  created  a  German  interest,  and 
gave  a  transient  unity  to  the  German  name,  under  all 
its  multiplied  divisions.     Were  it  only  for  this  conquest 
of  difficulties  so  peculiar,  he  would  deserve  his  German 
designation  of  Fred,  the  Unique,  {Fritz  der  einzige.) 
He  had  been  partially  tried  and  known  previously ;  but 
it  was  the   Seven  Years'   War  which  made  him  the 
popular  idol.     This  began  in  1756  ;  and  to  Frankfort, 
in  a  very  peculiar  way,  that  war  brought  dissensions 


GOETHE.  245 

and  heart-burnings  in  its  train.  The  imperial  connec- 
tions of  the  city  with  many  public  and  private  interests, 
pledged  it  to  the  anti-Prussian  cause.  It  happened  also 
that  the  truly  German  character  of  the  reigning  impe- 
rial family,  the  domestic  habits  of  the  empress  and  her 
young  daughters,  and  'other  circumstances,  were  of  a 
nature  to  endear  the  ties  of  policy  ;  self-interest  and 
affection  pointed  in  the  same  direction.  And  yet  were 
all  these  considerations  allowed  to  melt  away  before 
the  brilliant  qualities  of  one  man,  and  the  romantic 
enthusiasm  kindled  by  his  victories.  Frankfort  was 
divided  within  herself;  the  young  and  the  generous 
were  all  dedicated  to  Frederick.  A  smaller  party, 
more  cautious  and  prudent,  were  for  the  imperialists. 
Families  were  divided  upon  this  question  against  fami- 
lies, and  often  against  themselves ;  feuds,  begun  in 
private,  issued  often  into  public  violence  ;  and,  accord- 
ing to  Goethe's  own  illustration,  the  streets  were  vexed 
by  daily  brawls  as  hot  and  as  personal  as  of  old 
between  the  Capulets  and  Montagues. 

These  dissensions,  however,  were  pursued  with  not 
much  personal  risk  to  any  of  the  Goethes,  until  a 
French  army  passed  the  Rhine  as  allies  of  the  imperi- 
alists. One  corps  of  this  force  took  up  their  quarters 
in  Frankfort ;  and  the  Comte  Thorane,  who  held  a  high 
appointment  on  the  staff,  settled  himself  for  a  long  pe- 
riod of  time  in  the  spacious  mansion  of  Goethe's  father. 
This  officer,  whom  his  place  made  responsible  for  the 
discipline  of  the  army  in  relation  to  the  citizens,  was 
naturally  by  temper  disposed  to  moderation  and  for- 
bearance. He  was  indeed  a  favorable  specimen  of 
French  military  officers  under  the  old   system  ;    well 


246  GOETHE. 

bred,  not  arrogant,  well  informed,  and  a  friend  of  the 
fine  arts.  For  painting,  in  particular,  he  professed 
great  regard  and  some  knowledge.  The  Goethes  were 
able  to  forward  his  views  amongst  German  artists ; 
whilst,  on  the  other  hand,  they  were  pleased  to  have 
thus  an  opportunity  of  directing  his  patronage  towards 
some  of  their  own  needy  connections.  In  this  exchange 
of  good  offices,  the  two  parties  were  for  some  time  able 
to  maintain  a  fair  appearance  of  reciprocal  good-will. 
This  on  the  comte's  side,  if  not  particularly  warm,  was 
probably  sincere  ;  but  in  Goethe  the  father  it  was  a 
masque  for  inveterate  dislike.  A  natural  ground  of 
this  existed  in  the  original  relations  between  them. 
Under  whatever  disguise  or  pretext,  the  Frenchman 
was  in  fact  a  military  intruder.  He  occupied  the  best 
suite  of  rooms  in  the  house,  used  the  furniture  as  his 
own ;  and,  though  upon  private  motives  he  abstained 
from  doing  all  the  injury  which  his  situation  authorized, 
(so  as  in  particular  to  have  spread  his  fine  militaiy  maps 
upon  the  floor,  rather  thaai  disfigure  the  decorated  walls 
by  nails,)  still  he  claimed  credit,  if  not  services  of  re- 
quital, for  all  such  instances  of  forbearance.  Here 
were  grievances  enough  ;  but,  in  addition  to  these,  the 
comte's  official  appointments  drew  upon  him  a  weight 
of  daily  busihess,  which  kept  the  house  in  a  continual 
uproar. "  Farewell  to  the  quiet  of  a  literary  amateur, 
and  the  orderliness  of  a  German  household.  Finally, 
the  comte  was  a  Frenchman.  These  were  too  many 
assaults  upon  one  man's  patience.  It  will  be  readily 
understood,  therefore,  how  it  happened,  that,  whilst 
Goethe's  gentle  minded  mother,  with  her  flock  of 
children,  continued  to  be  on  the  best  terms  with  Comte 


GOETHE.  247 

Thorane,  the  master  of  the  house  kept  moodily  aloof, 
and  retreated  from  all  intercourse. 

Goethe,  in  his  own  Memoir,  enters  into  large  details 
upon  this  subject ;  and  from  him  we  shall  borrow  the 
denouement  of  the  tale.  A  crisis  had  for  some  time 
been  lowering  over  the  French  affairs  in  Frankfort; 
things  seemed  ripening  for  a  battle ;  and  at  last  it 
came.  Flight,  siege,  bombardment,  possibly  a  storm, 
all  danced  before  the  eyes  of  the  terrified  citizens.  For- 
tunately, however,  the  battle  took  place  at  the  distance 
of  four  or  five  miles  from  Frankfort.  Monsieur  le 
Comte  was  absent,  of  course,  on  the  field  of  battle. 
His  unwilling  hpst  thought  that  on  such  an  occasion  he 
also  might  go  out  in  quality  of  spectator ;  and  with 
this  purpose  he  connected  another,  worthy  of  a  Parson 
Adams.  It  is  his  son  who  tells  the  story,  whose  filial 
duty  was  not  proof  against  his  sense  of  the  ludicrous. 
The  old  gentleman's  hatred  of  the  French  had  by  this 
time  brought  him  over  to  his  son's  admiration  of  the 
Prussian  hero.  Not  doubting  for  an  instant  that  victory 
would  follow  that  standard,  he  resolved  on  this  day  to 
offer  in  person  his  congratulations  to  the  Prussian  army, 
whom  he  already  viewed  as  his  liberator  from  a  domes- 
tic nuisance.  So  purposing,  he  made  his  way  cautiously 
to  the  suburbs;  from  the  suburbs,  still  listening  at  each 
advance,  he  went  forward  to  the  country ;  totally  for- 
getting, as  his  son  insists,  that,  however  completely 
beaten,  the  French  army  must  still  occupy  some  situa- 
tion or  other  between  himself  and  his  German  deliverer. 
Coming,  however,  at  length  to  a  heath,  he  found  some 
of  those  marauders  usually  to  be  met  with  in  the  rear 
of  armies,  prowling  about,  and  at  intervals  amusing 


248  GOETHE. 

themselves  with  shooting  at  a  mark.  For  want  of  a 
better,  it  seemed  not  improbable  that  a  large  German 
head  might  answer  their  purpose.  Certain  signs  ad- 
monished him  of  this,  and  the  old  gentleman  crept 
back  to  Frankfort.  Not  many  hours  after  came  back 
also  the  comte,  by  no  means  creeping,  however ;  on 
the  contrary,  crowing  with  all  his  might  for  a  victory 
which  he  averred  himself  to  have  won.  There  had  in 
fact  been  an  affair,  but  on  no  very  great  scale,  and 
with  no  distinguished  results.  Some  prisoners,  how- 
ever, he  brought,  together  with  some  wounded ;  and 
naturally  he  expected  all  well  disposed  persons  to  make 
their  compliments  of  congratulation  upon  this  triumph. 
Of  this  duty  poor  Mrs.  Goethe  and  her  children  cheer- 
fully acquhted  themselves  that  same  night;  and  Mon- 
sieur le  Comte  was  so  well  pleased  with  the  sound 
opinions  of  the  little  Goethes,  that  he  sent  them  in 
return  a  collection  of  sweetmeats  and  fruits.  All 
promised  to  go  well ;  intentions,  after  all,  are  not  acts  ; 
and  there  certainly  is  not,  nor  ever  was,  any  treason  in 
taking  a  morning's  walk.  But,  as  ill  luck  would  have 
it,  just  as  Mr.  Goethe  was  passing  the  comte's  door, 
out  came  the  comte  in  person,  purely  by  accident,  as 
we  are  told ;  but  we  suspect  that  the  surly  old  German, 
either  under  his  morning  hopes  or  his  evening  disap- 
pointments, had  talked  with  more  frankness  than  pru- 
dence. '  Good  evening  to  you,  Herr  Goethe,'  said  the 
comte ;  '  you  are  come,  I  see,  to  pay  your  tribute  of 
congratulation.  Somewhat  of  the  latest,  to  be  sure ; 
but  no  matter.'  '  By  no  means,'  replied  the  German  : 
'  by  no  means ;  mit  nichten.  Heartily  I  wished,  the 
whole  day  long,  that  you  and  your  cursed  gang  might 


GOETHE.  249 

all  go  to  the  devil  together.'  Here  was  plain  speaking, 
at  least.  The  Comte  Thorane  could  no  longer  com- 
plain of  dissimulation.  His  first  movement  was  to 
order  an  arrest ;  and  the  official  interpreter  of  the 
French  army  took  to  himself  the  whole  credit  that  he 
did  not  carry  it  into  effect.  Goethe  takes  the  trouble 
to  report  a  dialogue,  of  length  and  dulness  absolutely 
incredible,  between  this  interpreter  and  the  comte. 
No  such  dialogue,  we  may  be  assured,  ever  took  place. 
Goethe  may,  however,  be  right  in  supposing  that, 
amongst  a  foreign  soldiery,  irritated  by  the  pointed 
contrasts  between  the  Frankfort  treatment  of  their  own 
wounded,  and  of  their  prisoners,  who  happened  to  be 
in  the  same  circumstances,  and  under  a  military  council 
not  held  to  any  rigorous  responsibility,  his  father  might 
have  found  no  very  favorable  consideration  of  his  case. 
It  is  well,  therefore,  that  after  some  struggle  the  comte's 
better  nature  triumphed.  He  suffered  Mrs.  Goethe's 
merits  to  outweigh  her  husband's  delinquency  ;  counter- 
manded the  order  for  arrest,  and,  during  the  remainder 
of  their  connection,  kept  at  such  a  distance  from  his 
moody  host  as  was  equally  desirable  for  both.  For- 
tunately that  remainder  was  not  very  long.  Coiqpte 
Thorane  was  soon  displaced  ;  and  the  whole  army  was 
soon  afterwards  withdrawn  from  Frankfort. 

In  his  fifteenth  year  Goethe  was  entangled  in  some 
connection  with  young  people  of  inferior  rank,  amongst 
whom  was  Margaret,  a  young  girl  about  two  years 
older  than  himself,  and  the  object  of  his  first  love. 
The  whole  affair,  as  told  by  Goethe,  is  somewhat  mys- 
terious. What  might  be  the  final  views  of  the  elder 
parties  it  is  difficult  to  say  ;  but  Goethe  assures  us  that 


250 


GOETHE. 


they  used  his  services  only  in  writing  an  occasional 
epithalamium,  the  pecuniaiy  acknowledgment  for  which 
was  spent  jovially  in  a  general  banquet.  The  magis- 
trates, however,  interfered,  and  endeavored  to  extort  a 
confession  from  Goethe.  He,  as  the  son  of  a  respectable 
family,  was  to  be  pardoned  ;  the  others  to  be  punished. 
No  confession,  however,  could  be  extorted  ;  and  for  his 
own  part  he  declares  that,  beyond  the  offence  of  form- 
ing a  clandestine  connection,  he  had  nothing  to  confess. 
The  affair  terminated,  as  regarded  himself,  in  a  severe 
illness.     Of  the  others  we  hear  no  more. 

The  next  event  of  importance  in  Goethe's  life  was 
his  removal  to  college.  His  own  wishes  pointed  to 
Gottingen,  but  his  father  preferred  Leipsic.  Thither 
accordingly  he  went,  but  he  carried  his  obedience  no 
farther.  Declining  the  study  of  jurisprudence,  he 
attached  himself  to  general  literature.  Subsequently 
he  removed  to  the  university  of  Strasburg  ;  but  in  neither 
place  could  it  be  said  that  he  pursued  any  regular  course 
of  study.  His  health  suffered  at  times  during  this  pe- 
riod of  his  life  ;  at  first,  from  an  affection  of  the  chest, 
caused  by  an  accident  on  his  first  journey  to  Leipsic ; 
the  carriage  had  stuck  fast  in  the  muddy  roads,  and 
Goethe  exerted  himself  too  much  in  assisting  to  extri- 
cate the  wheels.  A  second  illness  connected  with  the 
digestive  organs  brought  him  into  considerable  danger. 

After  his  return  to  Frankfort,  Goethe  commenced  his 
career  as  an  author.  In  1773,  and  the  following  year, 
he  made  his  maiden  essay  in  Goetz  of  Berlichingen,  a 
drama,  (the  translation  of  which,  remarkably  enough? 
was  destined  to  be  the  literary  coup  d'^essai  of  Sir  Wal- 
ter Scott,)  and  in  the  far-famed  Werther.     The  first  of 


GOETHE.  251 

these  was  pirated  ;  and  in  consequence  the  author  found 
some  difficulty  in  paying  for  the  paper  of  the  genuine 
edition,  which  part  of  the  expense,  by  his  contract  with 
the  publisher,  fell  upon  himself.  The  general  and 
early  popularity  of  the  second  work  is  well  known. 
Yet,  except  in  so  far  as  it  might  spread  his  name 
abroad,  it  cannot  be  supposed  to  have  had  much  influ- 
ence in  attracting  that  potent  patronage  which  now 
began  to  determine  the  course  of  his  future  life.  So 
much  we  collect  from  the  account  which  Goethe  him- 
self has  left  us  of  this  affair  in  its  earliest  stages. 

*  I  was  silting  alone  in  my  room,'  says  he,  '  at  my 
father's  house  in  Frankfort,  when  a  gentleman  entered, 
whom  at  first  I  took  for  Frederick  Jacobi,  but  soon 
discovered  by  the  dubious  light  to  be  a  stranger.  He 
had  a  military  air;  and  announcing  himself  by  the 
name  of  Von  Knebel,  gave  me  to  understand  in  a  short 
explanation,  that  being  in  the  Prussian  service,  he  had 
connected  himself,  during  a  long  residence  at  Berlin 
and  Potsdam,  with  the  literati  of  those  places ;  but  that 
at  present  he  held  the  appointment  from  the  court  of 
Weimar  of  travelling  tutor  to  the  Prince  Constantine. 
This  I  heard  with  pleasure ;  for  many  of  our  friends 
had  brought  us  the  most  interestinor  accounts  from 
Weimar,  in  particular  that  the  Duchess  Amelia,  mother 
of  the  young  grand  duke  and  his  brother,  summoned 
to  her  assistance  in  educating  her  sons  the  most  dis- 
tinguished men  in  Germany ;  and  that  the  university 
of  Jena  cooperated  pov.^erfully  in  all  her  liberal  plans. 
I  was  aware  also  that  Wieland  was  in  high  favor;  and 
that  the  German  Mercury  (a  literary  journal  of  emi- 
nence) was  itself  highly  creditable  to  the  city  of  Jena, 


252  GOETHE. 

from  which  it  issued.  A  beautiful  and  well-conducted 
theatre  had  besides,  as  I  knew,  been  lately  established 
at  Weimar.  This,  it  was  true,  had  been  destroyed ; 
but  that  event,  under  common  circumstances  so  likely 
to  be  fatal  as  respected  the  present,  had  served  only  to 
call  forth  the  general  expression  of  confidence  in  the 
young  prince  as  a  restorer  and  upholder  of  all  great 
interests,  and  true  to  his  purposes  under  any  calamity.' 
Thinking  thus,  and  thus  prepossessed  in  favor  of  Wei- 
mar, it  was  natural  that  Goethe  should  be  eager  to  see 
the  prince.  Nothing  was  easier.  It  happened  that  he 
and  his  brother  Constantino  were  at  this  moment  in 
Frankfort,  and  Von  Knebel  willingly  offered  to  present 
Goethe.  No  sooner  said  than  done ;  they  repaired  to 
the  hotel,  where  they  found  the  illustrious  travellers, 
with  Count  Goertz^  the  tutor  of  the  elder. 

Upon  this  occasion  an  accident,  rather  than  any 
previous  reputation  of  Goethe,  was  probably  the. deter- 
mining, occasion  which  led  to  his  favor  with  the  future 
sovereign  of  Weimar.  A  new  book  lay  upon  the  table ; 
that  none  of  the  strangers  had  read  it,  Goethe  inferred 
from  observing  that  the  leaves  were  as  yet  uncut.  It 
was  a  work  of  Moser,  (Patrioiische  Phanfasien  ;)  and, 
being  political  rather  than  literary  in  its  topics,  it  pre- 
sented to  Goethe,  previously  acquainted  with  its  outline, 
an  opportunity  for  conversing  with  the  prince  upon 
subjects  nearest  to  his  heart,  and  of  showing  that  he 
was  not  himself  a  mere  studious  recluse.  The  oppor- 
tunity was  not  lost ;  the  prince  and  his  tutor  were  much 
interested,  and  perhaps  a  little  surprised.  Such  sub- 
jects have  the  further  advantage,  according  to  Goethe's 
own  illustration,  that,  like  the  Arabian  thousand  and 


GOETHE.  253 

• 

one  nights,  as  conducted  by  Sultana  Scheherezade, 
'never  ending,  still  beginning,'  they  rarely  come  to 
any  absolute  close,  but  so  interweave  one  into  another, 
as  still  to  leave  behind  a  large  arrear  of  interest.  In 
order  to  pursue  the  conversation,  Goethe  was  invited  to 
meet  them  soon  after  at  Mentz.  He  kept  the  appoint- 
ment punctually ;  made  himself  even  more  agreeable  ; 
and  finally  received  a  formal  invitation  to  enter  the  ser- 
vice of  this  excellent  prince,  who  was  now  beginning 
to  collect  around  him  all  those  persons  who  have  since 
made  Weimar  so  distinguished  a  name  in  connection 
with  the  German  literature.  With  some  opposition 
from  his  father,  who  held  up  the  rupture  between  Vol- 
taire and  Frederick  of  Prussia  as  a  precedent  applying 
to  all  possible  connections  of  princes  and  literati, 
Goethe  accepted  the  invitation  ;  and  hencefor wards, 
for  upwards  of  fifty-five  years,  his  fortunes  were  bound 
up  with  those  of  the  ducal  house  of  Weimar. 

The  noble  part  which  that  house  played  in  the  great 
modern  drama  of  German  politics  is  well  known,  and 
would  have  been  better  known  had  its  power  been 
greater.  But  the  moral  value  of  its  sacrifices  and  its 
risk  is  not  the  less.  Had  greater  potentates  shown 
equal  firmness,  Germany  would  not  have  been  laid  at 
the  feet  of  Napoleon.  In  1806,  the  grand  duke  was 
aware  of  the  peril  which  awaited  the  allies  of  Prussia ; 
but  neither  his  heart  nor  his  conscience  would  allow  of 
his  deserting  a  friend  in  whose  army  he  held  a  principal 
command.  The  decisive  battle  took  place  in  his  own 
territory,  and  not  far  from  his  own  palace  and  city  of 
Weimar.  Personally  he  was  with  the  Prussian  army ; 
but  his  excellent  consort  stayed  in  the  palace  to  encour- 


254  GOETHE. 

age  her  subjects,  and  as  far  as  possible  to  conciliate  the 
enemy  by  her  presence.  The  fortune  of  that  great 
day,  the  14th  of  October,  1806,  was  decided  early ; 
and  the  awful  event  was  announced  by  a  hot  retreat 
and  a  murderous  pursuit  through  the  streets  of  the  town. 
In  the  evening  Napoleon  arrived  in  person ;  and  now 
came  the  trying  moment.  '  The  duchess,'  says  an 
Englishman  well  acquainted  with  Weimar  and  its  court, 
'  placed  herself  on  the  top  of  the  staircase  to  greet  him 
with  the  formality  of  a  courtly  reception.  Napoleon 
started  when  he  beheld  her :  Qui  etes  vous  ?  he  ex- 
claimed with  characteristic  abruptness.  Je  suis  la 
Duchesse  de  Weimar.  Je  vous  plains,  he  retorted 
fiercely,  Tecraserai  votre  mari ;  he  then  added,  '  I 
shall  dine  in  my  apartment,'  and  rushed  by  her.  The 
night  was  spent  on  the  part  of  the  soldiery  in  all  the 
horrid  excesses  of  rapine.  In  the  morning  the  duchess 
sent  to  inquire  concerning  the  health  of  his  majesty  the 
emperor,  and  to  solicit  an  audience.  He,  who  had  now 
benefited  by  his  dreams,  or  by  his  reflections,  returned 
a  gracious  answer,  and  invited  himself  to  breakfast  with 
her  in  her  apartment.'  In  the  conversation  which  en- 
sued. Napoleon  asked  her  if  her  husband  were  mad  ; 
upon  which  she  justified  the  duke  by  appealing  to  his 
own  magnanimity,  asking  in  her  turn  if  his  majesty 
would  have  approved  of  his  deserting  the  king  of  Prus- 
sia at  the  moment  when  he  was  attacked  by  so  potent 
a  monarch  as  himself.  The  rest  of  the  conversation 
was  in  the  same  spirit,  uniting  with  a  sufficient  conces- 
sion to  the  circumstances  of  the  moment  a  dignified 
vindication  of  a  high-minded  policy.  Napoleon  was 
deeply  impressed  with  respect  for  her,  and  loudly  ex- 


GOETHE; 

pressed  it.  For  her  sake,  indeed,  he  even  atfected  to 
pardon  her  husband,  thus  nnaking  a  merit  with  her  of 
'the  necessity  which  he  felt,  from  other  motives,  for 
showing  forbearance  towards  a  family  so  nearly  allied 
to  that  of  St.  Petersburg.  In  1813  the  Grand  Duke  was 
found  at  his  post  in  that  great  gathering  of  the  nations 
which  took  place  on  the  stupendous  jEields  of  Leipsic, 
and  was  complimented  by  the  allied  sovereigns  as  one 
of  the  most  faithful  amongst  the  faithful  to  the  great 
cause,  yet  undecided,  of  national  independence. 

With  respect  to  Goethe,  as  a  councillor  so  near  the 
duke's  person,  it  may  be  supposed  that  his  presence 
was  never  wanting  where  it  promised  to  be  useful.  In 
the  earlier  campaigns  of  the  duke,  Goethe  was  his  com- 
panion ;  but  in  the  final  contest  with  Napoleon  he  was 
unequal  to  the  fatigues  of  such  a  post.  In  all  the  func- 
tions of  peace,  however,  he  continued  to  be  a  useful 
servant  to  the  last,  though  long  released  from  all  official 
duties.  Each  had  indeed  most  honorably  earned  the 
gratitude  of  the  other.  Goethe  had  surrendered  the 
flower  of  his  years  and  the  best  energies  of  his  mind  to 
the  service  of  his  serene  master.  On  the  other  hand, 
that  master  had  to  him  been  at  once  his  Augustus  and 
his  Msecenas ;  such  is  his  own  expression.  Under  him  * 
he  had  founded  a  family,  raised  an  estate,  obtained 
titles  and  decorations  from  various  courts ;  and  in  the 
very  vigor  of  his  life  he  had  been  allowed  to  retire, 
with  all  the  honors  of  long  service,  to  the  sanctuary  of 
his  own  study,  and  to  the  cultivation  of  his  leisure,  as 
the  very  highest  mode  in  which  he  could  further  the 
public  interest. 

The  life  of  Goethe  was  so  quiet  and  so  uniform  after 


256  GOETHE. 

the  year  1775,  when  he  may  first  be  said  to  have  en- 
tered into  active  life,  by  taking  service  with  the  Duke 
of  Weimar,  that  a  biographer  will  find  hardly  any  event 
to  notice,  except  two  journeys  to  Italy,  and  one  cam- 
paign in  1792,  until  he  draws  near  the  close  of  his  long 
career.  It  cannot  interest  an  English  reader  to  see  the 
dates  of  his  successive  appointments.  It  is  enough  to 
know  that  they  soon  raised  him  to  as  high  a  station  as 
was  consistent  with  literary  leisure  ;  and  that  he  had 
from  the  beginning  enjoyed  the  unlimited  confidence  of 
his  sovereign.  Nothing  remained,  in  fact,  for  the  sub- 
ject to  desire  which  the  prince  had  not  previously  vol- 
unteeredi.  In  1825  they  were  able  to  look  back  upon 
a  course  of  uninterrupted  friendship,  maintained  through 
good  and  evil  fortunes,  unexampled  in  their  agitation 
and  interest  for  fifty  years.  The  duke  commemorated 
this  remarkable  event  by  a  jubilee,  and  by  a  medal  in 
honor  of  Goethe.  Full  of  years  and  honor,  this  emi- 
nent man  might  now  begin  to  think  of  his  departure. 
However,  iiis  serenity  continued  unbroken  nearly  for 
two  years  more,  when  his  illustrious  patron  died.  That 
shock  was  the  first  which  put  his  fortitude  to  trial.  In 
1830  others  followed ;  the  duchess  who  had  won  so 
much  admiration  from  Napoleon,  died ;  then  followed 
his  own  'son  ;  and  there  remained  little  now  to  connect 
his  wishes  with  the  earth.  The  family  of  his  patron  he 
had  lived  to  see  flourishing  in  his  descendants  to  the 
fourth  generation.  His  own  grandchildren  were  pros- 
perous and  happy.  His  intellectual  labors  were  now 
accomplished.  All  that  remained  to  wish  for  was  a 
gentle  dismission.  This  he  found  in  the  spring  of  1832. 
After  a  six  days'  illness,  which  caused  him  no  apparent 


GOETHE.  257 

suffering,  on  the  morning  of  the  22cl  of  March  he 
breathed  away  as  if  into  a  gentle  sleep,  surrounded  by 
his  daughter-in-law  and  her  children.  Never  was  a 
death  more  in  harmony  with  the  life  it  closed  ;  both 
had  the  same  character  of  deep  and  absolute  serenity. 
Such  is  the  outline  of  Goethe's  life,  traced  through  its 
principal  events.  But  as  these  events,  after  all,  borrow 
their  interest  mainly  from  the  consideration  allowed  to 
Goethe  as  an  author,  and  as  a  model  in  the  German 
literature, —  that  being  the  centre  about  which  all  sec- 
ondary feelings  of  interest  in  the  man  must  finally 
revolve,  —  it  thus  becomes  a  duty  to  throw  a  glance 
over  his  principal  works.  Dismissing  his  songs,  to  which 
has  been  ascribed  by  some  critics  a  very  high  value 
for  their  variety  and  their  lyrical  enthusiasm  ;  dismiss- 
ing also  a  large  volume  of  short  miscellaneous  poems, 
suited  to  the  occasional  circumstances  in  which  they 
arose  ;  we  may  throw  the  capital  works  of  Goethe 
into  two  classes,  philosophic  novels  and  dramas.  The 
novels,  which  we  call  philosophic  by  way  of  expressing 
their  main  characteristic  in  being  written  to  serve  a 
preconceived  purpose,  or  to  embody  some  peculiar 
views  of  life,  or  some  aspects  of  philosophic  truth,  are 
three,  viz.,  the  Werther''s  Leiden  ;  secondly,  the  Wil- 
helm  Meister ;  and,  lastly,  the  Wahloer-wandschaften. 
The  first  two  exist  in  English  translations  ;  and  though 
the  Werther  had  the  disadvantage  of  coming  to  us 
through  a  French  version,  already,  perhaps,  somewhat 
colored  and  distorted  to  meet  the  Parisian  standards  of 
sentiment,  yet,  as  respects  Goethe  and  his  reputation 
amongst  us,  this  wrong  has  been  redressed,  or  com- 
pensated at  least,  by  the  good  fortune  of  his  Wilhelm 
17 


258  GOETHE. 

Meister^  in  falling  into  the  hands  of  a  translator  whose 
original  genius  qualified  him  for  sympathizing  even  to 
excess  with  any  real  merits  in  that  work.  This  novel 
is  in  its  own  nature  and  purpose  sufficiently  obscure  ; 
and  the  commentaries  which  have  been  written  upon  it 
by  the  Humboldts,  Schlegels,  &c.,  make  the  enigma 
still  more  enigmatical.  We  shall  not  venture  abroad 
upon  an  ocean  of  discussion  so  truly  dark,  and  at  the 
same  time  so  illimitable.  Whether  it  be  qualified  to 
excite  any  deep  and  sincere  feeling  of  one  kind  or 
another  in  the  German  mind, —  in  a  mind  trained 
under  German  discipline,  —  this  we  will  consent  to 
waive  as  a  question  not  immediately  interesting  to  our- 
selves. Enough  that  it  has  not  gained,  and  will  not 
gain,  any  attention  in  this  country  ;  and  this  not  only 
because  it  is  thoroughly  deficient  in  all  points  of  at- 
traction to  readers  formed  upon  our  English  literature, 
but  because  in  some  capital  circumstances  it  is  abso- 
^tely  repulsive.  We  do  not  wish  to  offend  the  admir- 
ers  of  Goethe ;  but  the  simplicity  of  truth  will  not 
allow  us  to  conceal,  that  in  various  points  of  descrip- 
tion or  illustration,  and  sometimes  in  the  very  outline 
of  the  story,  the  Wilhehn  Meister  is  at  open  war,  not 
with  decorum  and  good  taste  merely,  but  with  moral 
)urity  and  the  dignity  of  human  nature.  As  a  novelist, 
Goethe  and  his  reputation  are  problems,  and  likely  to 
continue  such,  to  the  countrymen  of  Mrs.  Inchbald, 
Miss  Harriet  Lee,  Miss  Edgeworth,  and  Sir  Walter 
Scott.  To  the  dramatic  works  of  Goethe  we  are  dis- 
posed to  pay  more  homage ;  but  neither  in  the  abso- 
lute amount  of  our  homage  at  all  professing  to 
approach   his   public    admirers,   nor  to   distribute  the 


GOETHE.  259 

proportions  of  this  homage  amongst  his  several  per- 
formances according  to  the  graduations  of  their  scale. 
The  Ipliigenie  is  built  upon  the  old  subject  of  Iphigenia 
in  Tauris,  as  treated  by  Euripides  and  other  Grecian 
dramatists ;  and,  if  we  are  to  believe  a  Schlegel,  it  is 
in  beauty  and  effect  a  mere  echo  or  reverberation  from 
the  finest  strains  of  the  old  Grecian  music.  That  it  is 
somewhat  nearer  to  the  Greek  model  than  a  play  after 
the  fashion  of  Racine,  we  grant.  Setting  aside  such 
faithful  transcripts  from  the  antique  as  the  Samson 
Agonistes,  we  might  consent  to  view  Goethe  as  that  one 
amongst  the  moderns  who  had  made  the  closest  ap- 
proximation to  the  Greek  stage.  Proximus,  we  might 
say,  with'  Quintilian,  but  with  him  we  must  add,  '  sed 
longo  intervallo ; '  and  if  in  the  second  rank,  yet 
nearer  to  the  third  than  to  the  first.  Two  other  dramas, 
the  Clavigo  and  the  Egmont,  fall  below  the  Iphigenie 
by  the  very  character  of  their  pretensions ;  the  first  as 
too  openly  renouncing  the  grandeurs  of  the  ideal ;  the 
second  as  confessedly  violating  the  historic  truth  of 
character,  without  temptation  to  do  so,  and  without 
any  consequent  indemnification.  The  Tasso  has  been 
supposed  to  realize  an  Italian  beauty  of  genial  warmth 
and  of  sunny  repose  ;  but  from  the  common  defect  of 
German,  criticism — the  absence  of  all  sufiicient  illus- 
trations —  it  is  as  difficult  to  understand  the  true  nature 
and  constituents  of  the  supposed  Italian  standard  set 
up  for  the  regulation  of  our  judgments,  as  it  is  to 
measure  the  degree  of  approach  made  to  that  standard 
in  this  particular  work.  Eugenie  is  celebrated  for  the 
artificial  burnish  of  the  style,  but  otherwise  has  been 
little  relished.     It  has  the  beauty  of  marble  sculpture, 


260  GOETHE. 

say  the  critics  of  Goethe,  but  also  the  coldness.  We 
are  not  often  disposed  to  quarrel  with  these  critics  as 
helow  the  truth  in  their  praises  ;  in  this  instance  we 
are.  The  Eugenie  is  a  fragment,  or  (as  Goethe  him- 
self called  it  in  conversation)  a  torso,  being  only  the 
first  drama  in  a  trilogy  or  series  of  three  dramas,  each 
having  a  separate  plot,  whilst  all  are  parts  of  a  more 
general  and  comprehensive  plan.  It  may  be  charged 
with  languor  in  the  movement  of  the  action,  and  with 
excess  of  illustration.  Thus,  e.  g.  the  grief  of  the 
prince  for  the  supposed  death  of  his  daughter,  is  the 
monotonous  topic  which  occupies  one  entire  act.  But 
the  situations,  though  not  those  of  scenical  distress,  are 
so  far  from  being  unexciting,  that,  on  the  'contrary, 
they  are  too  powerfully  afflicting. 

The  lustre  of  all  these  performances,  however,  is 
eclipsed  by  the  unrivalled  celebrity  amongst  German 
critics  of  the  Faust.  Upon  this  it  is  better  to  say 
nothing  than  too  little.  How  trifling  an  advance  has 
been  made  towards  clearing  the  ground  for  any  sane 
criticism,  may  be  understood  from  this  fact,  that  as  yet 
no  two  people  have  agreed  about  the  meaning  of  any 
separate  scene,  or  about  the  drift  of  the  whole. 
Neither  is  this  explained  by  saying,  that  until  lately  the 
Faust  was  a  fragment;  for  no  additional  light  has 
dawned  upon  the  main  question  since  the  publication 
of  the  latter  part. 

One  work  there  is  of  Goethe's  which  falls  into 
neither  of  the  classes  here  noticed ;  we  mean  the 
Hermann  and  Dorothea^  a  narrative  poem,  in  hexa- 
meter verse.  This  appears  to  have  given  more  plea- 
sure to  readers  not  critical,  than  any  other  work  of  its 


GOETHE.  261 

author ;  and  it  is  remarkable  that  it  traverses  humbler 
ground,  as  respects  both  its  subject,  its  characters,  and 
its  scenery.  From  this,  and  other  indications  of  the 
same  kind,  we  are  disposed  to  infer  that  Goethe  mis- 
took his  destination;  that  his  aspiring  nature  misled 
him  ;  and  that  his  success  would  have  been  greater 
had  he  confined  himself  to  the  real  in  domestic  life, 
without  raising  his  eyes  to  the  ideal. 

We  must  also  mention,  that  Goethe  threw  out  some 
novel  speculations  in  physical  science,  and  particularly 
in  physiology,  in  the  doctrine  of  colors,  and  in  com- 
parative anatomy,  which  have  divided  the  opinions  of 
critics  even  more  than  any  of  those  questions  which 
have  arisen  upon  points  more  directly  connected  with 
his  avowed  character  of  poet. 

It  now  remains  to  say  a  few  words  by  way  of  sum- 
ming up  his  pretensions  as  a  man,  and  his  intellectual 
power  in  the  age  to  which  he  belonged.  His  rank  and 
value  as  a  moral  being  are  so  plain  as  to  be  legible  to 
him  who  runs.  Everybody  must  feel  that  his  tempera- 
ment and  constitutional  tendency  was  of  that  happy 
quality,  the  animal  so  nicely  balanced  with  the  intel- 
lectual, that  with  any  ordinary  measure  of  propriety 
he  could  not  be  otherwise  than  a  good  man.  He 
speaks  himself  of  his  own  '  virtue,'  sans  phrase  ;  and 
we  tax  him  with  no  vanity  in  doing  so.  As  a  young 
man  even  at  the  universities,  which  at  that  time  were 
barbarously  sensual  in  Germany,  he  was  (for  so  much 
we  collect  from  his  own  Memoirs)  eminently  capable 
of  self-restraint.  He  preserves  a  tone  of  gravity,  of 
sincerity,  of  respect  for  female  dignity,  which  we 
never  find  associated  with  the  levity  and  recklessness 


262 


GOETHE. 


of  vice.  We  feel  throughout,  the  presence  of  one 
who,  in  respecting  others,  respects  himself;  and  the 
cheerfulness  of  the  presiding  tone  persuades  us  at 
once  that  the  narrator  is  in  a  healthy  moral  condition, 
fears  no  ill,  and  is  conscious  of  having  meditated  none. 
Yet  at  the  same  time  we  cannot  disguise  from  our- 
selves, that  the  moral  temperament  of  Goethe  was  one 
which  demanded  prosperity.  Had  he  been  called  to 
face  great  afflictions,  singular  temptations,  or  a  billowy 
and  agitated  course  of  life,  our  belief  is  that  his  nature 
would  have  been  found  unequal  to  the  strife  ;  he  would 
have  repeated  the  mixed  and  moody  character  of  his 
father.  Sunny  prosperity  was  essential  to  his  nature  : 
his  virtues  were  adapted  to  that  condition.  And  hap- 
pily that  was  his  fate.  He  had  no  personal  misfor- 
tunes ;  his  path  was  joyous  in  this  life  ;  and  even  the 
reflex  sorrow  from  the  calamities  of  his  friends  did  not 
press  too  heavily  on  his  sympathies  ;  none  of  these 
were  in  excess  either  as  to  degree  or  duration. 

In  this  estimate  of  Goethe  as  a  moral  being,  few 
people  will  differ  with  us,  unless  it  were  the  religious 
bigot.  And  to  him  we  must  concede  thus  much,  tliat 
Goethe  was  not  that  religious  creature  which  by  nature 
he  was  intended  to  become.  This  is  to  be  regretted. 
Groethe  was  naturally  pious  and  reverential  towards 
higher  natures ;  and  it  was  in  the  mere  levity  or 
wantonness  of  youthful  power,  partly  also  through  that 
early  false  bias  growing  out  of  the  Lisbon  earthquake, 
that  he  falsified  his  original  destination.  Do  we  mean, 
then,  that  a  childish  error  could  permanently  master 
his  understanding  ?  Not  so  ;  that  would  have  been 
corrected  with  his  growing  strength.     But  having  once 


GOETHE.  fff^\^         "  ^^^ 

arisen,  it  must  for  a  long  time  ha^  Hroulded  his  feel- 
ings ;  until  corrected,  it  must  have  imjyre^sed  a  corres- 
ponding false  bias  upon  his  practical  way  of  viewing 
things  ;  and  that  sort  of  false  bias,  once  established, 
might  long  survive  a  mere  error  of  the  understanding. 
One  thing  is  undeniable,  —  Goethe  had  so  far  corrupted 
and  clouded  his  natural  mind,  that  he  did  not  look  up 
to  God,  or  the  system  of  things  beyond  the  grave,  with 
the  interest  of  reverence  and  awe,  but  with  the  interest 
of  curiosity, 

Goethe,  however,  in  a  moral  estimate,  will  be 
viewed  pretty  uniformly.  But  Goethe  intellectually, 
Goethe  as  a  power  acting  upon  the  age  in  which  he 
lived,  that  is  another  question.  Let  us  put  a  case ; 
suppose  that  Goethe's  death  had  occurred  fifty  years 
ago,  that  is,  in  the  year  1785,  what  would  have  been 
the  general  impression  ?  Would  Europe  have  felt  a 
shock?  Would  Europe  have  been  sensible  even  of 
the  event  ?  Not  at  all ;  it  would  have  been  obscurely 
noticed  in  the  newspapers  of  Germany,  as  the  death 
of  a  novelist  who  had  produced  some  effect  about  ten 
years  before.  In  1832,  it  was  announced  by  the  post- 
horns  of  all  Europe  as  the  death  of  him  who  had 
written  the  Wilhelm  Meister^  the  Iphigenie,  and  the 
Faust,  and  who  had  been  enthroned  by  some  of  his 
admirers  on  the  same  seat  with  Homer  and  Shak- 
speare,  as  composing  what  they  termed  the  trinity  of 
men  of  genius.  And  yet  it  is  a  fact,  that,  in  the 
opinion  of  some  amongst  the  acknowledged  leaders  of 
our  own  literature  for  the  last  twenty-five  years,  the 
Werther  was  superior  to  all  which  followed  it,  and  for 
mere  power  was  the  paramount  work  of  Goethe.     For 


264  GOETHE. 

ourselves,  we  must  acknowle'dge  our  assent  upon  the 
whole  to  this  verdict ;  and  at  the  same  time  we  will 
avow  our  belief  that  the  reputation  of  Goethe  must 
decline  for  the  next  generation  or  two,  until  it  reaches 
its  just  level;  Three  causes,  we  are  persuaded,  have 
concurred  to  push  it  so  far  beyond  the  proportion  of 
real  and  genuine  interest  attached  to  his  works,  for  in 
Germany  his  works  are  little  read,  and  in  this  country 
not  at  all.  First,  his  extraordinary  age ;  for  the  last 
twenty  years  Goethe  had  been  the  patriarch  of  the 
German  literature.  Secondly,  the  splendor  of  his 
official  rank  at  the  court  of  Weimar  ;  he  was  the 
minister  and  private  friend  of  the  patriot  sovereign 
amongst  the  princes  of  Germany.  Thirdly,  the  quan- 
tity of  enigmatical  and  unintelligible  writing  which  he 
has  designedly  thrown  into  his  latter  works,  by  way 
of  keeping  up  a  system  of  discussion  and  strife  upon 
his  own  meaning  amongst  the  critics  of  his  country. 
These  disputes,  had  his  meaning  been  of  any  value  in 
his  own  eyes,  he  would  naturally  have  settled  by  a  few 
authoritative  words  from  himself;  but  it  was  his  policy 
to  keep  alive  the  feud  in  a  case  where  it  was  of  im- 
portance, that  his  name  should  continue  to  agitate  the 
world,  but  of  none  at  all  that  he  should  be  rightly 
interpreted. 


SCHILLER. 


John  Christopher  Frederick  von  Schiller  was 
born  at  Marbach,  a  small  town  in  the  duchy  of  Wiir- 
temberg,  on  the  10th  day  of  November,  1759.  It  will 
aid  the  reader  in  synchronizing  the  periods  of  this 
great  man's  life  with  the  corresponding  events  through- 
out Christendom,  if  we  direct  his  attention  to  the  fact, 
that  Schiller's  birth  nearly  coincided  in  point  of  time 
with  that  of  Robert  Burns,  and  that  it  preceded  that  of 
Napoleon  by  about  ten  years. 

The  position  of  Schiller  is  remarkable.  In  the  land 
of  his  birth,  by  those  who  undervalue  him  the  most,  he 
is  ranked  as  the  second  name  in  German  literature  ;i 
everywhere  else  he  is  ranked  as  the  first.  For  us,  who^ 
are  aliens  to  Germany,  Schiller  is  the  representative  of 
the  German  intellect  in  its  highest  form ;  and  to  him, 
at  all  events,  whether  first  or  second,  it  is  certainly  due, 
that  the  German  intellect  has  become  a  known  power, 
and  a  power  of  growing  magnitude,  for  the  great  com- 
monwealth of  Christendom.     Luther  and  Kepler,  potent 


266 


SCHILLER. 


intellects  as  they  were,  did  not  make  themselves 
known  as  Germans.  The  revolutionary  vigor  of  the 
one,  the  starry  lustre  of  the  other,  blended  with  the 
convulsions  of  reformation,  or  with  the  aurora  of 
ascending  science,  in  too  kindly  and  genial  a  tone  to 
call  off  the  attention  from  the  work  which  they  per- 
formed, from  the  service  which  they  promoted,  to  the 
circumstances  of  their  personal  position.  Their  coun- 
try, their  birth,  their  abode,  even  their  separate  exist- 
ence. Was  merged  in  the  mighty  cause  to  which  they 
lent  their  cooperation.  And  thus  at  the  beginning  of 
the  sixteenth  century,  thus  at  the  beginning  of  the 
seventeenth,  did  the  Titan  sons  of  Germany  defeat 
their  own  private  pretensions  by  the  very  grandeur  of 
their  merits.  Their  interest  as  patriots  was  lost  and 
confounded  in  their  paramount  interest.as  cosmopolites. 
What  they  did  for  man  and  for  human  dignity  eclipsed 
what  they  had  designed  for  Germany.  After  them 
there  was  a  long  interlunar  period  of  darkness  for  the 
land  of  the  Khine  and  the  Danube.  The  German 
energy,  too  spasmodically  excited,  suffered  a  collapse. 
Throughout  the  whole  of  the  seventeenth  century,  but 
one  vigorous  mind  arose  for  permanent  effects  in  litera- 
ture. This  was  Opitz,  a  poet  \yho  deserves  even  yet 
to  be  read  with  attention,  but  who  is  no  more  worthy 
to  be  classed  as  the  Dryden,  whom  his  too  partial 
countrymen  have  styled  him,  than  the  Germany  of  the 
Thirty  Years'  War  of  taking  rank  by  the  side  of 
civilized  and  cultured  England  during  the  Cromwellian 
era,  or  Klopstock  of  sitting  on  the  same  throne  with 
Milton.  Leibnitz  was  the  one  sole  potentate  in  the 
fields  of  intellect  whom  the  Germany  of  this  century 


^ 


SCHILLER.  267 

produced  ;  and  he,  like  Luther  and  Kepler,  impresses 
us  rather  as  a  European  than  as  a  German  mind, 
partly  perhaps  from  his  having  pursued  his  self- 
development  in  foreign  lands,  partly  from  his  large 
circle  of  foreign  connections,  but  most  of  all  from  his 
having  written  chiefly  in  French  or  in  Latin.  Passing 
onwards  to  the  eighteenth  century,  we  find,  through  its 
earlier  half,  an  absolute  wilderness,  unreclaimed  and 
without  promise  of  natural  vegetation,  as  the  barren 
arena  on  which  the  few  insipid  writers  of  Germany 
paraded.  The  torpor  of  acadenfic  dulness  domineered 
over  the  length  and  breadth  of  the  land.  And  as  these 
academic  bodies  were  universally  found  harnessed  in 
the  equipage  of  petty  courts,  it  followed  that  the 
lethargies  of  pedantic  dulness  were  uniformly  deep- 
ened by  the  lethargies  of  aulic  and  ceremonial  dulness ; 
so  that,  if  the  reader  represents  to  himself  the  very 
abstract  of  birthday  odes,  sycophantish  dedications, 
and  court  sermons,  he  will  have  some  adequate  idea  of 
the  sterility  and  the  mechanical  formality  which  at  that 
era  spread  the  sleep  of  death  over  German  literature. 
Literature,  the  very  word  literature,  points  the  laughter 
of  scorn  to  what  passed  under  that  name  during  the 
period  of  Gottsched.  That  such  a  man  indeed  as  this 
Gottsched,  equal  at  the  best  to  the  composition  of  a 
Latin  grammar  or  a  school  arithmetic,  should  for  a 
moment  have  presided  over  the  German  muses,  stands 
out  as  in  itself  a  brief  and  significant  memorial,  too 
certain  for  contradiction,  and  yet  almost  too  gross  for 
belief,  of  the  apoplectic  sleep  under  which  the  mind  of 
central  Europe  at  that  era  lay  oppressed.  The  rust  of 
disuse   had  corroded  the  very  principles  of  activity. 


268  SCHILLER. 

And,  as  if  the  double  night  of  academic  dulness,  com- 
bined with  the  dulness  of  court  inanities,  had  not  been 
sufficient  for  the  stifling  of  all  native  energies,  the 
feebleness  of  French  models  (and  of  these  moreover 
naturalized  through  still  feebler  imitations)  had  become 
the  law  and  standard  for  all  attempts  at  original  com- 
position. The  darkness  of  night,  it  is  usually  said, 
grows  deeper  as  it  approaches  the  dawn ;  and  the  very 
enormity  of  that  prostration  under  which  the  German 
intellect  at  this  time  groaned,  was  the  most  certain 
pledge  to  any  observing  eye  of  that  intense  re-action 
soon  to  stir  and  kindle  among  the  smouldering  activi- 
ties of  this  spell-bound  people.  This  re-action,  how- 
ever, was  not  abrupt  and  theatrical.  It  moved  through 
slow  stages  and  by  equable  gradations.  It  might  be 
said  to  commence  from  the  middle  of  the  eighteenth 
century,  that  is,  about  nine  years  before  the  birth  of 
Schiller ;  but  a  progress  of  forty  years  had  not  carried 
it  so  far  towards  its  meridian  altitude,  as  that  the  sym- 
pathetic shock  from  the  French  Revolution  was  by 
one  fraction  more  rude  and  shattering  than  the  public 
torpor  still  demanded.  There  is  a  memorable  cor- 
respondency throughout  all  members  of  Protestant 
Christendom  in  whatsoever  relates  to  literature  and 
intellectual  advance.  However  imperfect  the  organi- 
zation which  binds  them  together,  it  was  sufficient  even 
in  these  elder  times  to  transmit  reciprocally  from  one 
to  eveiy  other,  so  much  of  that  illumination  which 
could  be  gathered  into  books,  that  no  Christian  state 
could  be  much  in  advance  of  another,  supposing  that 
Popery  opposed  no  barriers  to  free  communication, 
unless  only  in  those  points  which  depended  upon  local 


SCHILLER.  269 

gifts  of  nature,  upon  the  genius  of  a  particular  people, 
or  upon  the  excellence  of  its  institutions.  These 
advantages  were  incommunicable,  let  the  freedom  of 
intercourse  have  been  what  it  might.  England  could 
not  send  off  by  posts  or  by  heralds  her  iron  and  coals ; 
she  could  not  send  the  indomitable  energy  of  her 
population  ;  she  could  not  send  the  absolute  security  of 
property ;  she  could  not  send  the  good  faith  of  her 
parliaments.  These  were  gifts  indigenous  to  herself, 
either  through  the  temperament  of  her  people,  or 
through  the  original  endowments  of  her  soil.  But  her 
condition  of  moral  sentiment,  her  high-toned  civic 
elevation,  her  atmosphere  of  political  feeling  and 
popular  boldness,  much  of  these  she  could  and  did 
transmit,  by  the  radiation  of  the  press,  to  the  very 
extremities  of  the  German  empire.  Not  only  were 
our  books  translated,  but  it  is  notorious  to  those  ac- 
quainted  with  German  novels,  or  other  pictures  of 
German  society,  that  as  early  as  the  Seven  Years' 
War,  (1756-1763,)  in  fact  from  the  very  era  when 
Cave  and  Dr.  Johnson  first  made  the  parliamentary 
debates  accessible  to  the  English  themselves,  most  of 
the  German  journals  repeated,  and  sent  forward  as 
telegraph,  these  senatorial  displays  to  every  village 
throughout  Germany.  From  the  polar  latitudes  to  the 
Mediterranean,  from  the  mouths  of  the  Rhine  to  the 
Euxine,  there  was  no  other  exhibition  of  free  delibera- 
tive eloquence  in  any  popular  assembly.  And  the 
Luise  of  Voss  alone,  a  metrical  idyl  not  less  valued 
for  its  truth  of  portraiture  than  our  own  Vicar  of 
Wakefield,  will  show,  that  the  most  sequestered  clergy- 
man of   a  rural   parish   did   not  think  his   breakfast 


270  SCHILLEK. 

equipage  complete  without  the  latest  report  from  the 
great  senate  that  sat  in  London.  Hence  we  need  not 
be  astonished  that  German  and  English  literature  were 
found  by  the  French  Revolution  in  pretty  nearly  the 
same  condition  of  semi-vigilance  and  imperfect  anima- 
tion. That  mighty  event  reached  us  both,  reached  us 
all,  we  may  say,  (speaking  of  Protestant  states,)  at  the 
same  moment,  by  the  same  tremendous  galvanism. 
The  snake,  the  intellectual  snake,  that  lay  in  ambush 
among  all  nations,  roused  itself,  sloughed  itself,  re-/ 
newed  its  youth,  in  all  of  them  at  the  same  periods 
A  new  world  opened  upon  us  all ;  new  revolutions 
of  thought  arose  ;  new  and  nobler  activities  were  born^; 
'  and  other  palms  were  won.' 

But  by  and   through  Schiller  it   was,  as  its 
organ,  that  this  great  revolutionary  impulse  expre 
itself.  (Already,  as  we  have  said,  not  less  than 
years  before  the  earthquake  by  which  France  explj 
and  projected  the  scoria  of  her  huge  crater  over  all 
Christian  lands,  a  stirring  had  commenced  among  the 
dry  bones  of  intellectual    Germany ;    and  symptoms 
arose  that  the  breath  of  life  would  soon  disturb,  by 
nobler  agitations  than  by  petty  personal  quarrels,  the . 
deathlike    repose   even   of    the    German  universities. ) 
Precisely  in  those  bodies,  however,  it  was,  in  those  as  • 
connected  with  tyrannical  governments,  each  academic 
body  being  shackled  to  its  own  petty  centre  of  local 
despotism,  that  the  old   spells  remained  unlinked  ;  and 
to  them,  equally  remarkable  as  firm  trustees  of  truth, 
and  as  obstinate  depositories  of  darkness  or  of  super- 
annuated prejudice,  we  must  ascribe  the  slowness  of  the 
Grerman  movement  on  the  path  of  re-ascent.     Mean- 


SCHILLER.  271 

time  tlie  earliest  torcli-bearer  to  the  murky  literature  of  \ 
this  great  land,  this  crystallization  of  political  states,    J 
was   Bodmer.     This   man    had   no   demoniac    genius, 
such  as  the  service  required ;  but  he  had  some  taste, 
and,  what  was  better,  he  had  some  sensibility.     He 
lived  among  the  Alps ;  and  his  reading  lay  among  the 
alpine  sublimities  of  Milton  and  Shakspeare.     Through 
his  very  eyes  he  imbibed  a  daily  scorn  of  Gottsched 
and  his  monstrous   compound  of  German  coarseness, 
with  French  sensual  levity.     He  could  not  look  at  his 
native  Alps,  but  he   saw  in  them,  and  their  austere 
grandeurs  or  their  dread  realities,  a  spiritual  reproach 
to  the  hoUowness  and  falsehood  of  that  dull  imposture, 
which    Gottsched    offered    by    way   of   substitute   for 
ngfture.     He   was   taught   by  the   Alps   to   crave    for 
something   nobler   and  deeper.     Bodmer,  though   far 
b^Vw  such  a  function,  rose  by  favor  of  circumstances! 
MTO  an  apostle  or  missionary  of  truth  for  Germany.!  ' 
He  translated  passages  of  English  literature.     He  in-\ 
oculated  with  his   own  sympathies  the   more  fervent 
mind  of  the  youthful  Klopstock,  who  visited  him  in 
Switzerland.     And  it  soon  became  evident,  that  Ger- 
many was  not  dead,  but  sleeping;   and  once   again,    \\y 
legibly  for  any  eye,  the   pulses  of  life  began  to  play  j 
freely  through  the  vast  organization  of  central  Europe.  ^ 

Klopstock,  however,  though  a  fervid,  a  religious,  and, 
for  that  reason,  an  anti-Gallican  mind,  was  himself  an 
abortion.  Such,  at  least,  is  our  own  opinion  of  this 
poet.  He  was  the  child  and  creature  of  enthusiasm, 
but  of  enthusiasm  not  allied  with  a  masculine  intellect, 
or  any  organ  for  that  capacious  vision,  and  meditative 
range,  which  his  subjects  demanded.  He  was  essentially 


^ 


272  SCHILLEE. 

thoughtless,  betrays  every  where  a  most  effeminate 
quality  of. sensibility,  and  is  the  sport  of  that  pseudo- 
enthusiasm,  and  baseless  rapture,  which  we  see  so 
often  allied  with  the  excitement  of  strong  liquors.  In 
taste,  or  the  sense  of  proportions  and  congruencies,  or 
the  harmonious  adaptations,  he  is  perhaps  the  most 
defective  writer  extant. 

But  if  no  patriarch  of  German  literature,  in  the  sense 
of  having  shaped  the  moulds  in  which  it  was  to  flow,  in 
the .  sense  of  having  disciplined  its  taste,  or  excited  its 
rivalship,  by  classical  models  of  excellence,  or  raised  a 
finished  standard  of  style,  perhaps  we  must  concede 
that,  on  a  minor  scale,  Klopstock  did  something  of  that 
service  in  every  one  of  these  departments.  His  works 
were  at  least  Miltonic  in  their  choice  of  subjects,  if 
ludicrously  non-Miltonic  in  their  treatment  of  those  sub- 
jects. And  whether  due  to  him  or  not,  it  is  undeniable 
that  in  his  time  the  mother-tongue  of  Germany  reviveS 
from  the  most  absolute  degradation  on  record,  to  its 
ancient  purity.  In  the  time  of  Gottsched,  the  authors 
of  Germany  wrote  a  macaronic  jargon,  in  which  French 
and  Latin  made  up  a  considerable  proportion  of  e^ery 
sentence :  nay,  it  happened  often  that  foreign  words 
were  inflected  with  German  forms ;  and  the  whole  re- 
sult was  such  as  to  remind  the  reader  of  the  medical 
examination  in^the  Malade  Imaginaire  of  Moliere  : 

•  Quid  poetea  est  k  faire  ? 

Saignare 

Baignare 

Ensuita  purgare,'  &c. 

Now  is  it  reasonable  to  ascribe  some  share  in  the  res- 
toration of  good  to  Klopstock,  both  because  his  own 
writings  exhibit  nothing  of  this  most  abject  euphuism,  (a 


SCHILLER.  273 

euphuism  expressing  itself  not  in  fantastic  refinements 
on  the  staple  of  the  language,  but  altogether  in  rejecting 
it  for  foreign  words  and  idioms,)  and  because  he  wrote 
expressly  on  the  subject  of  style  and  composition  ? 

Wieland,  meantime,  if  not  enjoying  so  intense  an 
acceptation  as  Klopstock,  had  a  more  extensive  one  ; 
and  it  is  in  vain  to  deny  him  the  praise  of  a  festive, 
brilliant,  and  most  versatile  wit.  The  Schlegels  showed 
the  haughty  malignity  of  their  ungenerous  natures,  in 
depreciating  Wieland,  at  a  time  when  old  age  had  laid 
a  freezing  hand  upon  the  energy  which  he  would  once 
have  put  forth  in  defending  himself.  He  was  the  Vol-  /-^ 
taire  of  Germany,  and  very  much  more  than  the  Vol-  ^ 
taire  ;  for  his  romantic  and  legendary  poems  are  above 
the  level  of  Voltaire.  But,  on  the  other  hand,  he  was 
a  Voltaire  in  sensual  impurity.  To  work,  to  carry  on 
a  plot,  to  affect  his  readers  by  voluptuous  impressions, — 
these  were  the  unworthy  aims  of  Wieland ;  and  though 
a  good-natured  critic  would  not  refuse  to  make  some 
allowance  for  a  youthful  poet's  aberrations  in  this  re- 
spect, yet  the  indulgence  cannot  extend  itself  to  mature 
years.  An  old  man  corrupting  his  readers,  attempting 
to  corrupt  them,  or  relying  for  his  effect  upon  corrup- 
tions already  effected,  in  the  purity  of  their  affections, 
is  a  hideous  object ;  and  that  must  be  a  precarious  influ- 
ence indeed  which  depends  for  its  durability  upon  the 
licentiousness  of  men.  Wieland,  therefore,  except  in 
parts,  will  not  last  as  a  national  idol ;  but  such  he  was 
nevertheless  for  a  time. 

Biirger  wrote  too  little  of  any  expansive  compass  to 
give  the  measure  of  his  powers,  or  to  found  national 
impression ;    Lichtenberg,   though    a  very   sagacious 
18 


274  SCHILLER. 

observer,  never  rose  into  what  can  be  called  a  power^ 
he  did  not  modify  his  age ;  yet  these  were  both  men  of 
extraordinary  talent,  and  Biirger  a  man  of  undoubted 
genius.  On  the  other  hand,  Lessing  was  merely  a  man 
of  talent,  but  of  talent  in  the  highest  degree  adapted  to 
popularity.  His  very  defects,  and  the  shallowness  of 
his  philosophy,  promoted  his  popularity ;  and  by  com- 
parison with  the  French  critics  on  the  dramatic  or  scen- 
ical  proprieties  he  is  ever  profound.  His  plummet,  if 
not  suited  to  the  soundless  depths  of  Shakspeare,  was 
able  ten  times  over  to  fathom  the  little  rivulets  of 
Parisian  philosophy.  This  he  did  effectually,  and  thus 
unconsciously  levelled  the  paths  for  Shakspeare,  and 
for  that  supreme  dominion  which  he  has  since  held 
over  the  German  stage,  by  crushing  with  his  sarcastic 
shrewdness  the  pretensions  of  all  who  stood  in  the  way. 
At  that  time,  and  even  yet,  the  functions  of  a  literary 
man  was  very  important  in  Germany  ;  the  popular  mind 
and  the  popular  ipstinct  pointed  one  way,  those  of  the 
little  courts  another.  Multitudes  of  little  German  states 
(many  of  which  were  absorbed  since  1816  by  the  pro- 
cess of  mediatizing)  made  it  their  ambition  to  play  at 
keeping  mimic  armies  in  their  pay,  and  to  ape  the 
greater  military  sovereigns,  by  encouraging  French 
literature  only,  and  the  French  language  at  their 
courts.  It  was  this  latter  propensity  which  had  gen- 
erated the  anomalous  macaronic  dialect,  of  which  we 
have  already  spoken  as  a  characteristic  circumstance 
in  the  social  features  of  literary  Germany  during  the 
first  half  of  the  eighteenth  century.  Nowhere  else, 
within  the  records  of  human  follies,  do  we  find  a 
corresponding   case,    in   which    the    government   and 


SCHILLER.  275 

the  patrician  orders  in  the  state,  taking  for  granted,- 
and  absolutely  postulating  the  utter  worthlessness  for 
intellectual  aims  of  those  in  and  by  whom  they  main- 
tained their  own  grandeur  and  independence,  undis- 
guisedly  and  even  professedly  sought  to  ally  them-, 
selves  with  a  foreign  literature,  foreign  literati,  and  a 
foreign  language.  In  this  unexampled  display  of  scorn 
for  native  resources,  and  the  consequent  collision  be- 
tween the  two  principles  of  action,  all  depended  upon 
the  people  themselves.  For  a  time  the  wicked  and 
most  profligate  contempt  of  the  local  governments  for 
that  native  merit  which  it  was  their  duty  to  evoke  and 
to  cherish,  naturally  enough  produced  its  own  justifica- 
tion. Like  Jews  or  slaves,  whom  all  the  world  have 
agreed  to  hold  contemptible,  the  German  literati  found 
it  hard  to  make  head  against  so  obstinate  a  prejudg- 
ment ;  and  too  often  they  became  all  that  they  were 
presumed  to  be.  Sint  Mcecenates,  non  deerunt,  FlaccCy 
Marones.  And  the  converse  too  often  holds  good  — 
that  when  all  who  should  have  smiled  scowl  upon  a 
man,  he  turns  out  the  abject  thing  they  have  predicted. 
Where  Frenchified  Fredericks  sit  upon  German  thrones, 
it  should  not  surprise  us  to  see  a  crop  of  Gottscheds 
arise  as  the  best  fruitage  of  the  land.  But  when  there 
is  any  latent  nobility  in  the  popular  mind,  such  scorn, 
by  its  very  extremity,  will  call  forth  its  own  counterac- 
tion. It  was  perhaps  good  for  Germany  that  a  prince 
so  eminent  in  one  aspect  as  Fritz  der  einziger,^  should 
put  on  record  so  emphatically  his  intense  conviction, 

*  •  Freddy  the  unique  ; '  which  is  the  name  by  which  the  Prussians 
expressed  their  admiration  of  the  martial  and  indomitable,  though 
somewhat  fantastic,  king. 


276  SCHILLER. 

that  no  good  thing  could  arise  out  of  Germany.  This 
creed  was  expressed  by  the  quality  of  the  French  minds 
which  he  attracted  to  his  court.  The  very  refuse  and 
dregs  of  the  Parisian  coteries  satisfied  his  hunger  for 
I  French  garbage  :  the  very  offal  of  their  shambles  met 
I  the  demand  of  his  palate  ;  even  a  Maupertuis,  so  long 
\  (IS  he  could  produce  a  French  baptismal  certificate,  was 
\  good  enough  to  manufacture  into  the  president  of  a 
Berlin  academy.  Such  scorn  challenged  a  reaction  ; 
the  contest  lay  between  the  thrones  of  Germany  and 
the  popular  intellect,  and  the  final  result  was  inevitable. 
Once  aware  that  they  were  insulted,  once  enlightened 
to  the  full  consciousness  of  the  scorn  which  trampled  on 
them  as  intellectual  and  predestined  Helots,  even  the 
mild-tempered  Germans  became  fierce,  and  now  began 
to  aspire,  not  merely  under  the  ordinary  instincts  of 
personal  ambition,  but  with  a  vindictive  feeling,  and  as 
conscious  agents  of  retribution.  It  became  a  pleasure 
with  the  German  author,  that  the  very  same  works 
which  elevated  himself,  wreaked  his  nation  upon  their 
princes,  and  poured  retorted  scorn  upon  their  most  un- 
generous and  unparental  sovereigns.  Already,  in  the 
reign  of  the  martial  Frederick,  the  men  who  put  most 
weight  of  authority  into  his  contempt  of  Germans,  — 
Euler,  the  matchless  Euler,  Lambert,  and  Immanuel 
Kant,  —  had  vindicated  the  preeminence  of  German 
mathematics.  Already,  in  1755,  had  the  same  Imman- 
uel Kant,  whilst  yet  a  probationer  for  the  chair  of  logic 
in  a  Prussian  university,  sketched  the  outline  of  that 
philosophy  which  has  secured  the  admiration,  though 
not  the  assent  of  all  men  known  and  proved  to  have 
understood  it,  of  all  men  able  to  state  its  doctrines  in 


SCH 


terms  admissible  by  its  disci] 
previously,  had  Haller,  who  wrote  in  German,  placed 
himself  at  the  head  of  the  current  physiology.  And  in 
the  fields  of  science  or  of  philosophy,  the  victory  was 
already  decided  for  the  German  intellect  in  competition 
with  the  French. 

But  the-  fields  of  literature  were  still  comparatively 
barren.  Klopstock  was  at  least  an  anomaly  ;  Lessing 
did  not  present  himself  in  the  impassioned  walks  of  lit- 
erature ;  Flerder  was  viewed  too  much  in  the  exclusive 
and  professional  light  of  a  clergyman ;  and,  with  the 
exception  of  John  Paul  Richter,  a  man  of  most  originial 
genius,  but  quite  unfitted  for  general  popularity,  no 
commanding  mind  arose  in  Germany  with  powers  for 
levying  homage  from  foreign  nations,^  until  the  appear- 
ance, as  a  great  scenical  poet,  of  Frederick  Schiller. 

The  father  of  this  great  poet  was  Caspar  Schiller,  an 
officer  in  the  military  service  of  the  Duke  of  Wiirtem- 
berg.  He  had  previously  served  as  a  surgeon  in  the 
Bavarian  army ;  but  on  his  final  return  to  his  native 
country  of  Wijrtemberg,  and  to  the  service  of  his  native 
prince,  he  laid  aside  his  medical  character  for  ever,  and 
obtained  a  commission  as  ensign  and  adjutant.  In  1763, 
the  Peace  of  Paris  threw  him  out  of  his  military  em- 
ployment, with  the  nominal  rank  of  captain.  But,  hav- 
ing conciliated  the  duke's  favor,  he  was  still  borne  on 
the  books  of  the  ducal  establishment ;  and,  as  a  planner 
of  ornamental  gardens,  or  in  some  other  civil  capacity, 
he  continued  to  serve  his  serene  highness  for  the  rest  of 
his  life. 

The  parents  of  Schiller  were  both  pious,  upright 
persons,  with  that  loyal  fidelity  to  duty,  and  that  humble 


278  SCHILLER. 

simplicity  of  demeanor  towards  their  superiors,  which 
is  so  often  found  among  the  unpretending  natives  of 
Germany.  It  is  probable,  however,  that  Schiller  owed 
j  to  his  mother  exclusively  the  preternatural  endowments 
of  his  intellect.  She  was  of  humble  origin,  the  daugh- 
ter of  a  baker,  and  not  so  fortunate  as  to  have  received 
much  education.  But  she  was  apparently  rich  in  gifts 
of  the  heart  and  the  understanding.  She  read  poetry 
with  delight ;  and  through  the  profound  filial  love  with 
which  she  had  inspired  her  son,  She  found  it  easy  to 
communicate  her  own  literary  tastes.  Her  husband 
was  not  illiterate,  and  had  in  mature  life  so  laudably 
applied  himself  to  the  improvement  of  his  own  defective 
knowledge,  that  at  length  he  thought  himself  capable  of 
appearing  before  the  public  as  an  author.  His  book 
related  simply  to  the  subjects  of  his  professional  expe- 
rience as  a  horticulturist,  and  was  entitled  Die  Baum- 
zucht,  im  Grossen  (On  the  Management  of  Forests.) 
Some  merit  we  must  suppose  it  to  have  had,  since  the 
public  called  for  a  second  edition  of  it  long  after  his 
own  death,  and  even  after  that  of  his  illustrious  son. 
And  although  he  was  a- plain  man,  of  no  pretensions, 
)and  possibly  even  of  slow  faculties,  he  has  left  behind 
/him  a  prayer,  in  which  there  is  one  petition  of  sublime 
/  and  pathetic  piety,  worthy  to  be  remembered  by  the 
;  side  of  Agar's  wise  prayer  against  the  almost  equal 
temptations  of  poverty  and  riches.  At  the  birth  of  his 
son,  he  had  been  reflecting  with  sorrowful  anxiety,  not 
unmingled  with  self-reproach,  on  his  own  many  dis- 
qualifications for  conducting  the  education  of  the  child. 
But  at  length,  reading  in  his  own  manifold  imperfections 
but  so  many  reiterations  of  the  necessity  that  he  should 


SCHILLER.  '  279 

rely  upon  God's  bounty,  converting  his  very  defects 
into  so  many  arguments  of  hope  and  confidence  in 
Heaven,  he  prayed  thus :  '  Oh  God,  that  knowest  my 
poverty  in  good  gifts  for  my  son's  inheritance,  gracious- 
ly permit  that,  even  as  the  want  of  bread  became  to  thy 
Son's  hunger-stricken  flock  in  the  wilderness  the  pledge 
of  overflowing  abundance,  so  likewise  my  darkness 
may,  in  its  sad  extremity,  carry  with  it  the  measure  of 
thy  unfathomable  light ;  and  because  I,  thy  worm,  can- 
not give  to  my  son  the  least  of  blessings,  do  thou  give 
the  greatest ;  because  in  my  hands  there  is  not  any 
thing,  do  thou  from  thine  pour  out  all  things ;  and  that 
temple  of  a  new-born  spirit,  which  I  cannot  adorn  even 
with  earthly  ornaments  of  dust  and  ashes,  do  thou  irra- 
diate with  the  celestial  adornment  of  thy  presence,  and 
finally  with  that  peace  that  passeth  all  understanding.' 

Reared  at  the  feet  of  parents  so  pious  and.  affection- 
ate, Schiller  would  doubtless  pass  a  happy  childhood  ;  ' 
and  probably  to  this  utter  tranquillity  of  his  earlier 
years,  to  his  seclusion  from  all  that  could  create  pain, 
or  even  anxiety,  we  must  ascribe  the  unusual  dearth  of 
anecdotes  from  this  period  of  his  life  ;  a  dearth  which 
has  tempted  some  of  his  biographers  into  improving 
and  embellishing  some  puerile  stories,  which  a  man  of 
sense  will  inevitably  reject  as  too  trivial  for  his  gravity  1 
or  too  fantastical  for  his  faith.  That  nation  is  happy-,J_-^ 
according  to  a  common  adage,  which  furnishes  little 
business  to  the  historian  ;  for  such  a  vacuity  in  facts 
argues  a  condition  of  perfect  peace  and  silent  prosper- 
ity. That  childhood  is  happy,  or  may  generally  be 
presumed  such,  which  has  furnished  few  records  of 
external  experience,  little  that  has  appeared  in  doing  or 


280  SCHILLER. 

in  suffering  to  the  eyes  of  companions ;  for  the  child 
who  has  been  made  happy  by  early  thoughtfulness, 
and  by  infantine  struggles  with  the  great  ideas  of 
his  origin  and  his  destination,  (ideas  which  settle  with 
a  deep,  dove-like  brooding  upon  the  mind  of  childhood, 
more  than  of  mature  life,  vexed  with  inroads  from  the 
noisy  world,)  will  not  manifest  the  workings  of  his 
spirit  by  much  of  external  activity.  The  fallentis 
semita  vUcb,  that  path  of  noiseless  life,  which  eludes 
and  deceives  the  conscious  notice  both  of  its  sub- 
ject and  of  all  around  him,  opens  equally  to  the 
man  and  to  the  child ;  and  the  happiest  of  all  child- 
hoods will  have  been  that  of  which  the  happiness  has 
survived  and  expressed  itself,  not  in  distinct  records, 
but  in  deep  affection,  in  abiding  love,  and  the  hauntings 
of  meditative  power. 

Such  a  childhood,  in  the  bosom  of  maternal  tender- 
'  ness,  was  probably  passed  by  Schiller ;  and  his  first 
awaking  to  the  world  of  strife  and  perplexity  happened 
in  his  fourteenth  year.  Up  to  that  period  his  life  had 
been  vagrant,  agreeably  to  the  shifting  necessities  of  the 
ducal  service,  and  his  education  desultory  and  domes- 
tic. But  in  the  year  1773  he  was  solemnly  entered  as 
a  member  of  a  new  academical  institution,  founded  by 
the  reigning  duke,  and  recently  translated  to  his  little 
capital  of  Stutgard.  This  change  took  place  at  the 
special  request  of  the  duke,  who,  under  the  mask  of 
patronage,  took  upon  himself  the  severe  control  of  the 
whole  simple  family.  The  parents  were  probably  both 
too  humble  and  dutiful  in  spirit  towards  one  whom  they 
regarded  in  the  double  light  of  sovereign  lord  and  of 
personal  benefactor,  ever  to  murmur  at  the  ducal  be- 


SCHILLER. '  281 

hests,  far  less  to  resist  them.  The  duke  was  for  them 
an  earthly  providence  ;  and  they  resigned  themselves, 
together  with  their  child,  to  the  disposal  of  him  who 
dispensed  their  earthly  blessings,  not  less  meekly  than 
of  Him  whose  vicegerent  they  presumed  him  to  be.  In 
i  such  a  frame  of  mind,  requests  are  but  another  name 
\  for  commands ;  and  thus  it  happened  that  a  second 
J  change  arose  upon  the  first,  even  more  delerminately 
/  fatal  to  the  young  Schiller's  happiness.  Hitherto  he  had 
'  cherished  a  day-dream  pointing  to  the  pastoral  office  in 
some  rural  district,  as  that  which  would  harmonize  best 
with  his  intellectual  purposes,  with  his  love  of  quiet, 
and  by  means  of  its  preparatory  requirements,  best  also 
with  his  own  peculiar  choice  of  studies.  But  this 
scheme  he  now  felt  himself  compelled  to  sacrifice; 
and  the  two  evils  which  fell  upon  him  concurrently  in 
his  new  situation,  were,  first,  the  formal  military  disci- 
pline and  monotonous  routine  of  duty ;  secondly,  the 
uncongenial  direction  of  the  studies,  which  were  shaped 
entirely  to  the  attainment  of  legal  knowledge,  and  the 
narrow  service  of  the  local  tribunals.  So  illiberal  and 
so  exclusive  a  system  of  education  was  revolting  to  the 
expansive  mind  of  Schiller;,  and  the  military  bondage 
'  under  which  this  system  was  enforced,  shocked  the  as- 
piring nobility  of  his  moral  nature,  not  less  than  the 
technical  narrowness  of  the  studies  shocked  his  under- 
standing. In  point  of  expense,  the  whole  establishment 
cost  nothing  at  all  to  those  parents  who  were  privileged 
servants  of  the  duke  ;  in  this  number  were  the  parents 
of  Schiller,  and  that  single  consideration  weighed  too 
powerfully  upon  his  filial  piety  to  allow  of  his  openly 
murmuring  at  his  lot ;  while  on  their  part,  the  parents 


282  SCHILLER. 

were  equally  shy  of  encouraging  a  disgust  which  too 
obviously  tended  to  defeat  the  promises  of  ducal  favor. 
This  system  of  monotonous  confinement  was  therefore 
carried  to  its  completion,  and  the  murmurs  of  the  young 
Schiller  were  either  dutifully  suppressed,  or  found  vent 
only  in  secret  letters  to  a  friend.  In  one  point  only 
Schiller  was  able  to  improve  his  condition;  jointly  with 
the  juristic  department,  was  another  for  training  young 
aspirants  to  the  medical  profession.  To  this,  as  prom- 
ising a  more  enlarged  scheme  of  study,  Schiller  by 
permission  transferred  himself  in  1775.  But  whatever 
relief  he  might  find  in  the  nature  of  his  new  studies,  he 
found  none  at  all  in  the  system  of  personal  discipline 
which  prevailed. 

Under  the  oppression  of  this  detested  system,  and  by 
pure  reaction  against  its  wearing  persecutions,  we  learn 
from  Schiller  himself,  that  in  his  nineteenth  year  he 
undertook  the  earliest  of  his  surviving  plays,  the  Rob- 
bers, beyond  doubt  the  most  tempestuous,  the  most  vol- 
canic, we  might  say,  of  all  juvenile  creations  anywhere 
recorded.  He  himself  calls  it  '  a  monster,'  and  a  mon- 
ster it  is ;  but  a  monster  which  has  never  failed  to  con- 
vulse the  heart  of  young  readers  with  the  temperament 
of  intellectual  enthusiasm  and  sensibility.  True  it  is,  and 
nobody  was  more  aware  of  that  fact  than  Schiller  himself 
in  after  years,  the  characters  of  the  three  Moors,  father 
and  sons,  are  mere  impossibilities ;  and  some  readers, 
in  whom  the  judicious  acquaintance  with  human  life  in 
its  realities  has  outrun  the  sensibilities,  are  so  much 
shocked  by  these  hypernatural  phenomena,  that  they 
are  incapable  of  enjoying  the  terrific  sublimities  which 
on  that  basis  of  the  visionary  do  really  exist.     A  poet, 


SCHILLER.  283 

perhaps  Schiller  might  have  alleged,  is  entitled  to  as- 
sume hypothetically  so  much  in  the  previous  positions 
or  circumstances  of  his  agents  as  is  requisite  to  the 
basis  from  which  he  starts.  It  is  undeniable  that 
Shakspeareand  others  have  availed  themselves  of  this 
principle,  and  with  memorable  success.  Shakspeare, 
for  instance,  postulates  his  witches,  his  Caliban,  his 
Ariel :  grant,  he  virtually  says,  such  modes  of  spiritual 
existence  or  of  spiritual  relations  as  a  possibility ;  do 
not  expect  me  to  demonstrate  this,  and  upon  that  single 
concession  I  will  rear  a  superstructure  that  shall  be  self- 
consistent  ;  e^g^thing  shall  be  internally  coherent  and 
reconciled,  whatever  be  its  external  relations  as  to  our 
human  experience.  But  this  species  of  assumption,  on 
the  largest  scale,  is  more  within  the  limits  of  credibility 
and  plausible  verisimilitude  when  applied  to  modes  of 
existence,  which,  after  all,  are  in  such  total  darkness  to 
us,  (the  limits  of  the  possible  being  so  undefined  and 
shadowy  as  to  what  can  or  cannot  exist,)  than  the  very 
slightest  liberties  taken  with  human  character,  or  with 
those  principles  of  action,  motives,  and  feelings,  upon 
which  men  would  move  under  given  circumstances, 
or  with  the  modes  of  action  which  in  common  prudence 
they  would  be  likely  to  adopt.  The  truth  is,  that,  as  a, 
coherent  work  of  art,  the  Robbers  is  indefensible  ;  but, 
however  monstrous  it  may  be  pronounced,  it  possesses 
a  power  to  agitate  and  convulse,  which  will  always  ob- 
literate its  great  faults  to  the  young,  and  to  all  whose 
judgment  is  not  too  much  developed.  And  the  best 
apology  for  Schiller  is  found  in  his  own  words,  in  re- 
cording the  circumstances  and  causes  under  which 
this  anomalous  production  arose.     '  To  escape,'  says 


284  SCHILLER. 

he,  *  from  the  formalities  of  a  discipline  which  was 
odious  to  my  heart,  I  sought  a  retreat  in  the  world  of 
ideas  and  shadowy  possibilities,  while  as  yet  I  knew 
nothing  at  all  of  that  human  world  from  which  I  was 
harshly  secluded  by  iron  bars.  Of  men,  the  actual 
men  in  this  world  below,  I  knew  absolutely  nothing 
at  the  time  when  I  composed  my  Robbers.  Four 
hundred  human  beings,  it  is  true,  were  my  fellow- 
prisoners  in  this  abode  ;  but  they  were  mere  tautologies 
and  reiterations  of  the  self-same  mechanic  creature, 
and  like  so  many  plaster-casts  from  the  same  original 
statue.  Thus  situated,  of  necessity  I  failed.  In  mak- 
ing the  attempt,  my  chisel  brought  out  a  monster,  of 
which  [and  that  was  fortunate]  the  world  had  no  type 
or  resemblance  to  show.' 

Meantime  this  demoniac  drama  produced  very  oppo- 
site results  to  Schiller's  reputation.  Among  the  young 
men  of  Germany  it  was  received  with  an  enthusiasm 
absolutely  unparalleled,  though  it  is  perfectly  untrue 
that  it  excited  some  persons  of  rank  and  splendid  ex- 
pectations (as  a  current  fable  asserted)  to  imitate  Charles 
Moor  in  becoming  robbers.  On  the  other  hand,  the 
play  was  of  too  powerful  a  cast  not  in  any  case  to  have 
alarmed  his  serenity  the  Duke  of  Wiirtemberg ;  for  it 
argued  a  most  revolutionary  mind,  and  the  utmost 
audacity  of  self-will.  But  besides  this  general  ground 
of  censure,  there  arose  a  special  one,  in  a  quarter  so 
remote,  that  this  one  fact  may  serve  to  evidence  the  ex- 
,tent  as  well  as  intensity  of  the  impression  made.  The 
territory  of  the  Grisons  had  been  called  by  Spiegelberg, 
one  of  the  robbers,  *  The  Thief's  Athens.'  Upon  this 
the  magistrates  of  that  country  presented  a  complaint 


SCHILLER.  285 

to  the  duke  ;  and  his  highness  having  cited  Schiller  to 
his  presence,  and  severely  reprimanded  him,  issued  a 
decree  that  this  dangerous  young  student  should  hence- 
forth confine  himself  to  his  medical  studies. 

The  persecution  which  followed  exhibits  such  extra- 
ordinary exertions  of  despotism,  even  for  that  land  of 
irresponsible  power,  that  we  must  presume  the  duke  to 
have  relied  more  upon  the  hold  which  he  had  upon 
Schiller  through  his  affection  for  parents  so  absolutely 
dependent  on  his  highness's  power,  than  upon  any 
laws,  good  or  bad,  which  he  could  have  pleaded  as  his 
warrant.  Germany,  however,  thought  otherwise  of  the 
new  tragedy  than  the  serene  critic  of  Wiirtemberg :  it 
was  performed  with  vast  applause  at  the  neighboring 
city  of  Mannheim ;  and  thither,  under  a  most  excusable 
interest  in  his  own  play,  the  young  poet  clandestinely 
went.  On  his  return  he  was  placed  under  arrest.  And 
soon  afterwards,  being  now  thoroughly  disgusted,  and, 
with  some  reason,  alarmed  by  the  tyranny  of  the  duke, 
Schiller  finally  eloped  to  Mannheim,  availing  himself 
of  the  confusion  created  in  Stuttgard  by  the  visit  of  a 
foreign  prince. 

At  Mannheim  he  lived  in  the  house  of  Dalberg,  a 
man  of  some  rank  and  of  sounding  titles,  but  in  Mann- 
heim known  chiefly  as  the  literary  manager  (or  what  is 
called  director)  of  the  theatre.  This  connection  aided 
in  determining  the  subsequent  direction  of  Schiller's 
talents  ;  and  his  Fiesco,  his  Intrigue  and  Love,  his  Don 
Carlos,  and  his  Maria  Stuart,  followed  within  a  short 
period  of  years.  None  of  these  are  so  far  free  from 
the  faults  of  the  Robbers  as  to  merit  a  separate  notice ; 
for  with  less  power,  they  are  almost  equally  licentious. 


SCHILLER. 

Finally,  however,  he  'brought  out  his  Wallenstein,  an 
immortal  drama,  and,  beyond  all  competition,  the  near- 
est in  point  of  excellence  to  the  dramas  of  Shakspeare. 
The  position  of  the  characters  of  Max  Piccolomini  and 
the  Princess  Thekla  is  the  finest  instance  of  what, 
in  a  critical  sense,  is  called  reliefs  that  literature  offers. 
Young,  innocent,  unfortunate,  among  a  camp  of  am- 
bitious, guilty,  and  blood-stained  men,  they  offer  a  depth 
and  solemnity  of  impression  which  is  equally  required 
by  way  of  contrast  and  of  final  repose. 

From  Mannheim,  where  he  had  a  transient  love  affair 
with  Laura  Dalberg,  the  daughter  of  his  friend  the 
director,  Schiller  removed  to  Jena,  the  celebrated  uni- 
versity in  the  territory  of  Weimar.  The  grand  duke  of 
that  German  Florence  was  at  this  time  gathering  around 
him  the  most  eminent  of  the  German  intellects ;  and  he 
was  eager  to  enroll  Schiller  in  the  body  of  his  professors. 
In  1799  Schiller  received  the  chair  of  civil  history ;  and 
not  long  after  he  married  Miss  Lengefeld,  with  whom 
he  had  been  for  some  time  acquainted.  In  1803  he 
was  ennobled;  that  is,  he  was  raised  to  the  rank  of 
gentleman,  and  entitled  to  attach  the  prefix  of  Von  to 
his  name.  His  income  was  now  sufficient  for  domestic 
comfort  and  respectable  independence;  while  in  the 
society  of  Goethe,  Herder,  and  other  eminent  wits,  he 
found  even  more  relaxation  for  his  intellect,  than  his 
intellect,  so  fervent  and  so  self-sustained,  could  require. 

Meantime  the  health  of  Schiller  was  gradually  under- 
mined :  his  lungs  had  been  long  subject  to  attacks  of 
disease ;  and  the  warning  indications  which  constantly 
arose  of  some  deep-seated  organic  injuries  in  his  pul- 
monary system  ought  to  have  put  him  on  his  guard  for 


SCHILLER.  287 

some  years  before  his  death.  Of  all  men,  however,  it 
is  remarkable  that  Schiller  was  the  most  criminally 
negligent  of  his  health ;  remarkable,  we  say,  because  for 
a  period  of  four  years  Schiller  had  applied  himself  seri- 
ously to  the  study  of  medicine.  The  strong  coffee,  and 
the  wine  which  hedrank,  may  not  have  been  so  inju- 1 
rious  as  his  biographers  suppose  ;  but  his  habit  of  sitting/ 
up  through  the  night,  and  defrauding  his  wasted  frame 
of  all  natural  and  restorative  sleep,  had  something  in  it 
of  that  guilt  which  belongs  to  suicide.  On  the  9th  of 
May,  1805,  his  complaint  reached  its  crisis.  Early  in 
the  morning  he  became  delirious;  at  noon  hisdelirium 
abated  ;  and  at  four  in  the  afternoon  he  fell  into  a  gen- 
tle unagitated  sleep,  from  which  he  soon  awoke.  Con- 
scious that  he  now  stood  on  the  very  edge  of  the  grave, 
he  calmly  and  fervently  took  a  last  farewell  of  his 
friends.  At  six  in  the  evening  he  fell  again  into  sleep, 
from  which,'  however,  he  again  awoke  once  more  to 
utter  the  memorable  declaration,  '  that  many  things 
were  growing  plain  and  clear  to  his  understanding.' 
After  this  the  cloud  of  sleep  again  settled  upon  him ;  a 
sleep  which  soon  changed  into  the  cloud  of  death. 

This  event  produced  a  profound  impression  through- 
out Germany.  The  theatres  were  closed  at  Weimar, 
and  the  funeral  was  conducted  with  public  honors.  The 
position  in  point  of  time,  and  the  peculiar  services  of 
Schiller  to  the  German  literature,  we  have  already 
stated  :  it  remains  to  add,  that  in  person  he  was  tall, 
and  of  a  strong  bony  structure,  but  not  muscular,  and 
strikingly  lean.  His  forehead  was  lofty,  his  nose  aqui- 
line, and  his  mouth  almost  of  Grecian  beauty.  With 
other  good  points  about  his  face,  and  with  auburn  hair, 


288  SCHILLER. 

it  may  be  presumed  that  his  whole  appearance  was 
pleasing  and  impressive,  while  in  latter  years  the  char- 
acter of  sadness  and  contemplative  sensibility  deepened 
the  impression  of  his  countenance.  We  have  said 
enough  of  his  intellectual  merit,  which  places  him  in 
our  judgment  at  the  head  of  the  Trans-Rhenish  litera- 
ture. But  we  add  in  concluding,  that  Frederick  von 
Schiller  was  something  more  than  a  great  author ;  he 
was  also  in  an  eminent  sense  a  great  man  ;  and  his 
works  are  not  more  worthy  of  being  studied  for  their 
singular  force  and  originality,  than  his  moral  character 
from  its  nobility  and  aspiring  grandeur. 


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